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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
This was my first Heather Gudenkauf book, and I really enjoyed it. Although there were a couple of times where I found something a little hard to believe, I felt she did a good job of telling the story and building the suspense as Sarah looked into the deaths happening in her husband's family and questioning whether one of them has been the killer. I'll definitely read more of her books.
This Iowa author has become one of my favorites and I'm working through her body of work. Missing Pieces is he story of Jack and his wife Sarah who travel back to Jack's home town because his beloved aunt has been in an accident. Jack has been haunted for years by the untimely death of his mother and his father's disappearance which caused speculation that his father had killed his mother. From the moment Jack and Sarah arrive in Penny Gate, decades of secrets start to reveal themselves to Sarah and she starts to wonder if she really knows the man she been married to all of these years.
Oh dear....
I've read a few Gudenkauf novels and have absolutely loved them. This one? Ehh....not so much...
It read like a very bad Columbo drama episode on the telly.
Here we have Sarah and Jack going to back to Jack's hometown after his absence of 20 years. As Sarah starts to learn more about Jack's past, she becomes less sure of her future.
I suppose that I just had a problem with Sarah and Jack as characters. After 20 years of marriage they just didn't seem to click at all. Even at the ending, the connection between them never seemed there...
I am also one that always has problems when a scared, inexperienced person walks away from a relatively safe situation and places themselves in grave danger, especially knowing that a police officer is closer and would be able to able to handle the situation and that they, themselves, wouldn't be able to protect themselves, let alone any one else.
When authors do this exact thing it really puts me off the entire book. Saying that, I can honestly say it didn't take just the ending to put me off this book. I was bored of my constant eye rolling with Sarah's behaviour pretty early on. I don't have to like a character to enjoy a book, but I do have to believe that a person would have acted in that way in real life. With this one I just felt, again, that it was an overacted plot to create drama and suspense. A good novel doesn't do that...No "overacting" is needed...
I'll still read the next Gudenkauf novel that comes out...One bad book doesn't put me off an author...especially one that I have enjoyed so much in the past...
I also hope Columbo does not take offense at me over this review :-) I loved Columbo when I was growing up....hahahaha
ARC provided by Edelweiss for an honest review
I've read a few Gudenkauf novels and have absolutely loved them. This one? Ehh....not so much...
It read like a very bad Columbo drama episode on the telly.
Here we have Sarah and Jack going to back to Jack's hometown after his absence of 20 years. As Sarah starts to learn more about Jack's past, she becomes less sure of her future.
I suppose that I just had a problem with Sarah and Jack as characters. After 20 years of marriage they just didn't seem to click at all. Even at the ending, the connection between them never seemed there...
I am also one that always has problems when a scared, inexperienced person walks away from a relatively safe situation and places themselves in grave danger, especially knowing that a police officer is closer and would be able to able to handle the situation and that they, themselves, wouldn't be able to protect themselves, let alone any one else.
When authors do this exact thing it really puts me off the entire book. Saying that, I can honestly say it didn't take just the ending to put me off this book. I was bored of my constant eye rolling with Sarah's behaviour pretty early on. I don't have to like a character to enjoy a book, but I do have to believe that a person would have acted in that way in real life. With this one I just felt, again, that it was an overacted plot to create drama and suspense. A good novel doesn't do that...No "overacting" is needed...
I'll still read the next Gudenkauf novel that comes out...One bad book doesn't put me off an author...especially one that I have enjoyed so much in the past...
I also hope Columbo does not take offense at me over this review :-) I loved Columbo when I was growing up....hahahaha
ARC provided by Edelweiss for an honest review
The plot was interesting enough that I read the whole book, but it was predictable and formulaic at times. I found the characters to be one-dimensional and unsympathetic. Additionally, there were several editing errors that were very distracting (ie one sentence reads in part "...could have driven flown in 3 hours").
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
When Jack was a kid, he found his mother dead in their basement. With his father as the main suspect, his aunt took him and his sister in to help raise them. Years later, Jack and his wife Sarah have to go back to his small Iowa hometown, when his aunt is in the hospital in critical condition, to try and help the family out.
Sarah starts to dig into Jack’s mothers death, and worries that Jack has been lying to her through their whole marriage. Could Jack actually be involved with his mom’s death? And now the death of his aunt? Or is his dad back after disappearing year before, after his last attack?
I believed that I had everything figured out, but I enjoyed the endings twist that proved me wrong. Everything is explained in the end, I love not having any loose ends. It is a well written story that has you wondering are the deaths connected and who did it.
Sarah starts to dig into Jack’s mothers death, and worries that Jack has been lying to her through their whole marriage. Could Jack actually be involved with his mom’s death? And now the death of his aunt? Or is his dad back after disappearing year before, after his last attack?
I believed that I had everything figured out, but I enjoyed the endings twist that proved me wrong. Everything is explained in the end, I love not having any loose ends. It is a well written story that has you wondering are the deaths connected and who did it.
Before picking up Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf (a #30Authors contributor), I was having a tough time finding a book I could get into. I wouldn’t call it a reading slump but I was definitely in a book-picking slump, so as a long-time Gudenkauf fan I was almost afraid to pick it up due to my state of mind. That fear was misplaced, however, because once again Gudenkauf has delivered a fantastic story that had me reading until the wee hours of the morning.
Missing Pieces is the story of Sarah and Jack Quinlan who return to Jack’s hometown after his aunt suffers a serious fall. This is no small feat, for Jack hadn’t been home in decades due to the trauma of losing his mother as a teenager. But, his aunt raised him, so he found it within himself to face his past and readjust to life with his family. Unfortunately, the details of his aunt’s accident are murky and become more ominous as time goes on. To make matters worse, Sarah’s interactions with the Quinlans and the townspeople leave her questioning everything she thought she knew about her life and her husband, setting her on a dangerous path to find the truth.
I liked Missing Pieces for three reasons. First, it’s a character-driven novel, so while there is action and twists and turns, it’s predominantly about the people. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has read Gudenkauf before because her books always feature richly developed, if flawed, characters. The complex relationships between Jack and his family and, ultimately, between Sarah and Jack, unfolded so naturally that new details seemed like old news. This isn’t to say that I expected them or that they were irrelevant, but that they fit so perfectly into the overall story that I didn’t question any of it.
For the full review, visit The Book Wheel.
Missing Pieces is the story of Sarah and Jack Quinlan who return to Jack’s hometown after his aunt suffers a serious fall. This is no small feat, for Jack hadn’t been home in decades due to the trauma of losing his mother as a teenager. But, his aunt raised him, so he found it within himself to face his past and readjust to life with his family. Unfortunately, the details of his aunt’s accident are murky and become more ominous as time goes on. To make matters worse, Sarah’s interactions with the Quinlans and the townspeople leave her questioning everything she thought she knew about her life and her husband, setting her on a dangerous path to find the truth.
I liked Missing Pieces for three reasons. First, it’s a character-driven novel, so while there is action and twists and turns, it’s predominantly about the people. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has read Gudenkauf before because her books always feature richly developed, if flawed, characters. The complex relationships between Jack and his family and, ultimately, between Sarah and Jack, unfolded so naturally that new details seemed like old news. This isn’t to say that I expected them or that they were irrelevant, but that they fit so perfectly into the overall story that I didn’t question any of it.
For the full review, visit The Book Wheel.
Not the best thriller I’ve read but not terrible. I felt the story was just too slow and repeated a lot of what we already found out.
Loved this domestic thriller and even after 20 years of marriage, you may not know all your partners secrets until it’s too late.
Disappointing. I love Heather Gudenkauf, and I wanted to love this, but I just couldn't.