Pinky Swear by Danielle Girard ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

A pulse-pounding thriller about a young woman whose surrogate disappears just days before the baby’s due date, leading to a frantic search that uncovers dark truths and the power of a mother’s love.

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

February 2026; Atria; 978-1668096529
audio, ebook, print (288 pages); suspense

This book is a suspenseful look at two women who have been friends since middle school.  One of them trusts her friend and thinks she is still the person she was in high school, but 16 years of life can cause a lot of changes, and she may be totally wrong in her feelings towards her friend.

Lexi desperately wanted a child but was unable to conceive.  When her best friend, Mara, shows up on her doorstep after over 16 years, Lexi is thrilled to see her.  When Mara finds out about Lexi’s desire for a baby, she offers to be a surrogate.  The entire pregnancy went very well, and the two women went to doctor’s appointments and decorated the nursery together.  Then, 4 days before the baby’s due date, Mara disappears.  Lexi just knows that something must have happened to cause her to disappear, but is she being too naive and trusting of her friend?  Lexi goes on a cross-country trip to try to find Mara, and during her search, she finds out that Mara may not have been the friend that she thought, and that she may have told a lot of lies about the last 16 years of her life.  Will Lexi be able to find Mara before the baby is delivered, or will the baby disappear along with Mara? Is Lexi willing to put her life in danger to find the baby that she so desperately wants?

This book is a real page turner as Lexi gets into dangerous situations trying to find the best friend who is close to delivering Lexi’s baby.  Both characters are well written, but at times I thought that Lexi was too eager to believe everything that Mara told her about her past.  She continued to view Mara as a best friend even when it looked like she had told Lexi a lot of lies. I especially enjoyed the dual timeline where stories of the two friends were told from their earlier years as well as the present time.

This is a great, suspenseful read about friendship and the true meaning of family.

Buy Pinky Swear 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 three 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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