rat_enthusiast 's review for:

Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy

2.75

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The fact that this book is tagged on here as “fast-paced” is honestly egregious. While this is a mystery/crime novel, it’s very literary, with much of it devoted to characterization, scene building, and musings on faith and redemption and all that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The back of this book says Douaihy has a background in poetry, and this does strike me as the writing of someone who’s still not great at balancing poetic moments with a fiction novel. It’s very much moreso Sister Holiday’s origin story than anything else, and I wish it had done a better job at balancing her origin and flashbacks and characterization with plot. Red herrings were being thrown out and resolved the next chapter (okay that’s an exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like sometimes), as if for the sole purpose of inching the plot along before getting back to character work. And maybe if the writing itself was better it could’ve carried the work more. 

That being said, Douaihy has a lot of skill that shines through. Sister Holiday is kind of the fucking worst, but in a way that compels you (like the best of our toxic noir detectives).

The scene where she turns in Jack, then goes to Sister Augustine’s office to be like “look at me look at me!”, but then she waits for twenty minutes and realizes Augustine is at the alter with Prince? It was a sharp indictment of her desperate need for validation in her new home. Just like Augustine, Holiday will cross lines to do what she believes is right and to protect their home.

 

I’ll likely read the next book in the series, but I hope the writing and pacing improve.