{"id":45691,"date":"2026-09-14T09:10:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T15:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=45691"},"modified":"2026-09-14T09:10:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T15:10:59","slug":"influenced-serenity-acres-where-secrets-barely-stay-hidden-by-crystal-quast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=45691","title":{"rendered":"Influenced: Serenity Acres: Where Secrets Barely Stay Hidden by Crystal Quast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Sharp, sinister, and savagely funny.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Quast\u2019s spirited novel blends social-media satire with domestic drama and a steadily darkening mystery. Brook Salinger has spent most of her young life in front of a camera, trapped on her family\u2019s wildly successful social-media channel and tormented by online bullies. Desperate to escape her controlling mother, Daphne, Brook strikes out on her own. But her bid for independence draws her toward unsettling forces, buried secrets, and a neighborhood mystery that may prove far more dangerous than anything she faced online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Quast\u2019s darkly comic story offers a sharp, timely satire of influencer culture, family exploitation, and the slippery line between authenticity and performance. Brook makes a sympathetic, convincing protagonist. Her complicated relationship with Daphne provides the story\u2019s strongest emotional current, as maternal concern becomes increasingly difficult to separate from ambition, jealousy, and control. Quast surrounds this conflict with an eccentric suburban cast, an unsolved mystery, and a playful supernatural thread that steadily gathers menace. The busy narrative occasionally wanders among its numerous characters and subplots, but its wit and mounting tension keep the pages turning. A wickedly entertaining cautionary tale about the price of turning private life into public content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Rick Johnston (Illustrator)<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Influenced-Serenity-Secrets-Barely-Hidden-ebook\/dp\/B0H8Q62KDG\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Buy now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Pub date <strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>October 15, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Print length 279 pages<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">ISBN 978-1069383891<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Price $7.99 Kindle edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sharp, sinister, and savagely funny. Quast\u2019s spirited novel blends social-media satire with domestic drama and a steadily darkening mystery. Brook Salinger has spent most of her young life in front of a camera, trapped on her family\u2019s wildly successful social-media channel and tormented by online bullies. Desperate to escape her controlling mother, Daphne, Brook strikes out on her own. But her bid for independence draws her toward unsettling forces, buried secrets, and a neighborhood mystery [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":45694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"Dive into Quast's sharp satire of influencer culture, exploring family tensions and dark secrets in a gripping suburban mystery.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Influenced: A Darkly Comic Dive into Social Media Satire","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[7223,91,3328,178,723771648,35241,1747,723771287,376,1136176,723772123,723769804,723769805,929713,1473,1008073,856121,309,349],"class_list":["post-45691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-author","tag-blogging","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-crystal-quast","tag-dark-humor","tag-fiction","tag-goodreads","tag-humor","tag-indie-books","tag-influenced-serenity-acres-where-secrets-barely-stay-hidden","tag-kindle","tag-nook","tag-psychological-thriller","tag-reading","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-bSX","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/71k43S7d0kL._SY466_.jpg?fit=311%2C466&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45695,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45691\/revisions\/45695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}