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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a solid mystery about a mother and daughter's life after the older sister is murdered with no resolution. 15ish years later, life is very different, the relationship is strained, secrets abound, and the truth comes out. I some things coming, the final twist got me.
[Disclaimer: e-ARC received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
3.75 stars
This was an enjoyable page-turning thriller.
I love a story with complex family relationships and Sylvie's relationship with her mother delivered this in spades. I did find the mystery very predictable but it was a quick page-turner of a read that I enjoyed working my way through.
If you're looking for a fun, return-to-home-town mystery, this is the book for you.
3.75 stars
This was an enjoyable page-turning thriller.
I love a story with complex family relationships and Sylvie's relationship with her mother delivered this in spades. I did find the mystery very predictable but it was a quick page-turner of a read that I enjoyed working my way through.
If you're looking for a fun, return-to-home-town mystery, this is the book for you.
This was a huge surprise. I was not expecting such beautiful words from a debut novel. I also couldn't put it down. I kinda suspected what was going to happen, but I still had a compulsion to read until the end. I will absolutely be looking for more books from Megan Collins, and I would heartily recommend this to lovers of complex characters and intricate family tensions.
4.5 stars rounded up. This novel is comprised of a lot of little mysteries that have to be revealed to uncover the main mystery: Who killed 18-year-old Persephone 16 years ago, when her sister, Sylvie, was just 14 years old?
After the death of her oldest daughter, Annie fell into self-medicating with alcohol. Sylvie leaves town as soon as she graduates high school—it’s never easy being a poor kid in a rich community, but it’s really not easy when you’re the sister of a murdered girl and the daughter of an alcoholic mother. She can move geographically, but she can’t escape her own feelings of how she played a part in her sister’s death. Sylvie returns home only when her mother is dying of cancer and has no one else. Between the day-to-day caring for a woman she has a tense relationship with, Sylvie is compelled to unravel the mysteries she’s uncovering now that she’s back in town. That’s the enjoyable part of the book—watching the little clues revealed one by one.
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.
After the death of her oldest daughter, Annie fell into self-medicating with alcohol. Sylvie leaves town as soon as she graduates high school—it’s never easy being a poor kid in a rich community, but it’s really not easy when you’re the sister of a murdered girl and the daughter of an alcoholic mother. She can move geographically, but she can’t escape her own feelings of how she played a part in her sister’s death. Sylvie returns home only when her mother is dying of cancer and has no one else. Between the day-to-day caring for a woman she has a tense relationship with, Sylvie is compelled to unravel the mysteries she’s uncovering now that she’s back in town. That’s the enjoyable part of the book—watching the little clues revealed one by one.
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.
Goodness. What a horrible mother. I genuinely could not stand her.
This book was a little slow, too. And the mysteries were a little ...lame. As thrillers go lately, this one wasn’t that far-fetched craziness, but that made it much less interesting to me. I was sucked in in the beginning then got a bit bored.
And, wow, that ending really let me down.
This book was a little slow, too. And the mysteries were a little ...lame. As thrillers go lately, this one wasn’t that far-fetched craziness, but that made it much less interesting to me. I was sucked in in the beginning then got a bit bored.
And, wow, that ending really let me down.
I liked the story a lot. However, It seemed a bit like the plot was a too close knit for my liking almost like the movie Clue where there's only so many characters and they're all interconnected in some convenient way and everyone has a part to play. The big plot twist you'll see coming but not in the original way the author leads you on to expect and I think it was well executed! It was a great and easy read. I especially liked how the ending was open ended and left the reader a tad curious. It was nice to read a thriller that wasn't wrapped up in a neat pink bow for once!
This was a Feb 2019 Book ot the Month selection. It was billed as thriller, but to be honest, it wasn’t all that suspenseful.There was not a lot of suspense because we already know there was a murder 16 years ago, but there is a mystery, because the murderer has never been identified. Nevertheless, I did find it very interesting; almost ‘unputdownable’. I would call if more of a family drama with a touch of mystery.
The story reminds me a little of [b:All the Missing Girls|23212667|All the Missing Girls|Megan Miranda|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1452098621s/23212667.jpg|42755300] and [b:The Long and Faraway Gone|20663088|The Long and Faraway Gone|Lou Berney|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1411488241s/20663088.jpg|26470491], where young woman solve confront cold case murders from the past. In this story, Sylvie is the younger sister who was 14 at the time of the murder of her older sister, Persephone, and Sylvie feels responsible. Her mother, who she was formerly close to, abandoned Sylive emotionally after Persephone’s death, submerging herself in drugs and alcohol.
There was a twist to the story that I guessed early on, maybe 50 pages in. But while I guessed the twist to the family drama, it could have gone 2 or 3 slightly different ways and I wasn’t sure which way it would go. The murderer was a little harder for me to figure out. The author did a pretty good job of playing ‘it was him….wait, no…it was him….wait, maybe it WAS him…’.
While I enjoyed the story, it left a few questions unanswered. These were not directly related to the murder, so it’s fair to say the story ended, but an epilogue telling a bit about the characters 5-10 years down the road would have left me feeling more satisfied with the book.
This is a great pick for readers who enjoy occasional mysteries and family dramas. This book will give book clubs plenty to discuss. There are discussion questions on the publisher’s website.
The story reminds me a little of [b:All the Missing Girls|23212667|All the Missing Girls|Megan Miranda|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1452098621s/23212667.jpg|42755300] and [b:The Long and Faraway Gone|20663088|The Long and Faraway Gone|Lou Berney|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1411488241s/20663088.jpg|26470491], where young woman solve confront cold case murders from the past. In this story, Sylvie is the younger sister who was 14 at the time of the murder of her older sister, Persephone, and Sylvie feels responsible. Her mother, who she was formerly close to, abandoned Sylive emotionally after Persephone’s death, submerging herself in drugs and alcohol.
There was a twist to the story that I guessed early on, maybe 50 pages in. But while I guessed the twist to the family drama, it could have gone 2 or 3 slightly different ways and I wasn’t sure which way it would go. The murderer was a little harder for me to figure out. The author did a pretty good job of playing ‘it was him….wait, no…it was him….wait, maybe it WAS him…’.
While I enjoyed the story, it left a few questions unanswered. These were not directly related to the murder, so it’s fair to say the story ended, but an epilogue telling a bit about the characters 5-10 years down the road would have left me feeling more satisfied with the book.
This is a great pick for readers who enjoy occasional mysteries and family dramas. This book will give book clubs plenty to discuss. There are discussion questions on the publisher’s website.
I guessed the ending of this book, but I was still totally interested in seeing it through. When Sylvie is a teenager, her older sister is murdered, the case goes cold, Sylvie blames herself and her mom becomes an alcoholic. 16 years later, Sylvie comes home to care for her mom who has cancer and the story starts unraveling. It's an easy, fast read.
Entertaining and easy to read straight through, but I found the characters frustrating and the whole thing too plot-centric for my taste.
A woman returns home sixteen years after her sister's murder. You can change the sister to a friend/love interest/etc, and this novel setup is a familiar one. I struggled with how to review this novel because the author's language is beautiful although the storyline is nothing revelatory. I think if you go into reading this book with expectations for family tension but not much in the way of thrills or suspense, you will enjoy this novel so much more. Everywhere I looked, I heard what a twisty thriller this was, and I while I did not see any surprising twists, I enjoyed the writing and the journey. This is a story that does better service to the characters than the overall mystery. Still, I loved the hero so I enjoyed this book tremendously.