Windfall by Wendy Corsi Staub ~ A Review

by Susan Roberts

Three friends’ lives terrifyingly unravel when they win a billion-dollar lottery jackpot—and one goes missing. 

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

July 2023; William Morrow; 978-0063235311
audio, ebook, print (336 pages); psychological thriller

Three college best friends decided to go to Las Vegas together for their 40th birthday.  Since they didn't do any good at the slot machines, they decided to buy a lottery ticket together as they were leaving to go home.  They are thrilled when they find out that their ticket won a billion  dollars in the lottery.  One of the women decided that they should turn to Shea Daniels, a “sudden wealth manager,” who promises to guide them through the pitfalls of having more money than they’d ever imagined.  Shea invites them to her huge home in California to talk about their new wealth.  When they get there, they find that the California mansion is surrounded by smoke due to wildfires, there is no cell coverage and they are basically shut off from the outside world.  And then one of the women disappears -- the woman who was holding the lottery ticket -- did she run off with the ticket so she wouldn't have to share the money or did something happen to her in the haunted mansion?  Years before, a famous movie star had disappeared from the mansion - was the house haunted or was there a predator lurking in the smoke?

Winning the lottery was the basic premise of the story but really wasn't the main plot line.  More important was the friendship between the three very different women.  They had been best friends in college and even referred to themselves as the September Girls with matching necklaces.  Even though they were friends, they all had lots of disappointments in their lives and didn't share many parts of their lives with each other always wanting to appear that their lives were happy.

The last half of the book was very exciting as everyone was looking for the missing woman as the wildfires got closer to the mansion.  My real problem with the book is that I didn't like or connect with any of the three women.  I sure wouldn't want to be friends with any of the three.  What definitely made the book worth reading was the setting at the mansion in California covered with smoke from nearby wildfires and having no way to communicate with the outside world due to lack of cell coverage.  For me, that's what made this a real page turner that had a surprising ending!

Buy Windfall at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is two hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

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