A review by hannaws
Initiated to Kill by Sharlene Almond

3.0

But now something was approaching. Something that felt like a train hurtling along the tracks, unable to stop or slow down. A train that would end in a wreck, lives ruined, and lives lost.

I was intrigued by this book simply because of the mention of Jack the Ripper. A re-telling of Jack the Ripper?! Well that’s something I want to read. I was really interested about Jack the Ripper back in the days and wanted to see how this re-telling was executed.

Honestly? I’m a little disappointed. Mostly because almost all the time I was confused while reading. This book has so many different POVs and almost all of them are written the way that you don’t even know who’s that current POV is. At least for me it was super confusing.

Annabella, the MC in this book, is a deaf girl in the center of all this. She has been on eye-to-eye contact with the big boss of the freemasons but she doesn’t remember that.
When Annabella’s POV first started, I found myself thinking “who is this girl?” instead of focusing on the story. Annabellas POVs are written first person and I would like to know “who am I”. Annabella’s name didn’t come up in a while and it was hard for me to concentrate. I know, I’m a bad reader, but that’s just something I want to know.

But all the confusing parts put aside, the story itself was really intriguing and exciting. It kept me guessing all the way to the end of the book. I couldn’t figure out the killer before he was revealed and that is important in crime thrillers, to not figure out the killer immediately at the start.
Even though I enjoyed the story, there were all the confusing parts and also the ending is bothering me. This is a standalone but still it kind of ended in a cliffhanger. Not all was resolved and dealt with and some parts were left untold. And for all this I’ll give it a total of 3 stars.