Georgia has been accused of murdering her sister. The only way she knows to protect herself, is by pretending to be insane to keep her out of prison.
According to Georgia, she’s innocent. She reaches out to Mandy, her long lost twin sister that doesn’t even know that Georgia exist. She tells Mandy, ‘you have to help me or they’re going to kill me.’
Sarah Pekkanen is one of my favorite authors. I was honored to be chosen to be an ARC reader for her upcoming book.
My biggest take away from The Locked Ward is, you can tell this author knows what she’s doing. It felt a very formula thriller. Which is great, but also slightly disappointing. The overall story and revealed twists were predictable. I still left the book feeling entertained.
The character building of the story is really the best part of the book. Both characters were well built with unique voices. I enjoyed the short, fast, paced structure of the book that kept me reading. It made this book hard to put down once you started.
My only real gripe with the format is it was the way it was written. It was written between two points of view, Georgia and Mandy. One was first person and one was second person. I’m not sure why the author chose to write like that? It not only was unnecessary, but it was actually distracting as a reader. It stood out way more than I would have thought. If you know why an author would do that, please let me know on the comments below because I’m baffled.
Overall, I feel this is a very strong, basic three star thriller. A great plane read. I would recommend this book to friends, but I’m not sure I would remember what the actual book is about. If asked, I would see the author and say, “yeah everything she writes is great.”
Amazon Link – The Locked Ward By: Sarah Pekkanen
Stats: 320 pages – Expected publication August 5, 2025
cmacs paperbacks 
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