She Treads Softly: We Were Never Friends

Monday, January 5, 2026

We Were Never Friends

We Were Never Friends by Kaira Rouda
2/3/26; 288 pages
Poison Pen Press

We Were Never Friends by Kaira Rouda is a recommended locked room thriller full of soap opera/popcorn thriller energy focused on the reunion of Theta Gamma Mu sorority sisters.

Beth Harrison and her daughter are traveling to the luxurious renovated Palm Springs vacation home of Beth's sorority sister Roxy Callahan Gentry and her husband Ryan to celebrate the engagement of their son Zach to Beth's daughter Celeste. Also invited for the weekend are Jamie Vale, a double legacy pledge, now cardiologist and her husband Greer, and showing up uninvited is wealthy sister Amelia Dell with new boyfriend Brett. Amelia and Roxy are frenemies so a clash between queen bees is expected. Attending in spirit is Sunny Spencer, best friend of Beth and beloved sorority sister who died their senior year.

Beth is very trepidatious about attending the orchestrated event planned solely by Roxy, and most certainly meant to affirm her reign as the queen. The first thing she notices, along with the other sisters, is how much the renovated estate resembles the resort where Sunny died twenty-five years ago. Once everyone arrives it quickly becomes clear that more is going on behind the scenes than just the engagement party and tensions along with secrets are clamoring to be released.

I'll be the first to admit that this medley of pretentious people behaving badly is entertaining and totally held my attention. It is certainly written to be a fast-paced diverting soap opera/popcorn thriller full of people who really don't like or trust each other at all. It is full of secrets, bad behavior, tension, and a ghost or two from the past. Initially, I was surprised that only two Theta Gamma Mu sorority sisters were invited as Amelia invited herself. If it was a celebration of sorority sisters gathering for the engagement party of the children of two members, wouldn't there be a few more invited, even if they were just fodder for disasters?

The characters are all caricatures of different types of people rather than individually developed characters. Obviously, we are supposed to support and like Beth and her daughter Celeste. Everyone else is suspect for some manner of bad behavior. We Were Never Friends was certainly written specifically for the over-the-top soap opera drama it amply provides. Thanks to Poison Pen Press for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.