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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The story seems unfinished. Leigh and Kai are fully developed and the story focused mostly on them and mostly from their point of view. Mark and Daan was by standers. Detective Clements and her actions were spotty especially given that her superiors did not want her to pursue the investigation any further. The pieces of evidence were weak and passable at best. Fiona's character did not make any type of sense! The ending was weak and rushed. I did enjoy the story up until the end and that broke it for me.
Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing, MIRA and NetGalley for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Enjoyable as an audio book but very predictable so I wasn't particularly excited by the twists. Didn't find any of the characters likeable at all which didnt help but I am intrigued by what the sequel might be like.
I struggled with this book immediately. I'm not one to not finish a book, so it was a challenge to keep going. I think this story could have benefited from better structure and organization, as well as some editing. A lot of the story felt indulgent and repetitive. I also saw both major twists coming pretty far in advance.
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Enjoyable read. I wasn't too surprised with the ending. I felt all along this was going to be a book full of twists. Plan on reading the next in the DCI Clements series.
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was going to give this 3 stars, as it is a decent story, even if the writing isn't great, every twist was telegraphed lightyears ahead, and all the characters except Seb are very unlikeable, which makes it hard to care what happens to them. But then the ending was really bad and left me feeling cheated. So two stars it is.
The structure of the book was quite perplexing too. Not sure why certain characters had to be in first person, or why the third person narration was always from a particular one or other of the characters. They do not have distinctive voices - for exanple, one first person narrator describes people 'smudging together', and Parks clearly likes this phrase, so has another character remembering themselves 'smudging together'.
The speech never sounds particularly real, but in the final chapters one character goes into a series of monologues which are so overblown I doubt they'd come out of even Gyles Brandreth's mouth.
There are also long portions of the story where it drags and is hugely repetitive (aaaah! the different viewpoints may be an attempt to hide this!), and in the end we find out why. It seems that a single story idea has been split over two books. There probably really was only one good book in it.
The structure of the book was quite perplexing too. Not sure why certain characters had to be in first person, or why the third person narration was always from a particular one or other of the characters. They do not have distinctive voices - for exanple, one first person narrator describes people 'smudging together', and Parks clearly likes this phrase, so has another character remembering themselves 'smudging together'.
The speech never sounds particularly real, but in the final chapters one character goes into a series of monologues which are so overblown I doubt they'd come out of even Gyles Brandreth's mouth.
There are also long portions of the story where it drags and is hugely repetitive (aaaah! the different viewpoints may be an attempt to hide this!), and in the end we find out why. It seems that a single story idea has been split over two books. There probably really was only one good book in it.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes