A review by obsidian_blue
Exposure by Ramona Emerson

3.0

 

What a bummer, the first book had such an excellent premise and I think that Emerson wanted to have her cake and eat it too with this one. I think that Rita should have been the sole focus of this second book and instead seemed to be stuffed into it and it just didn't work.

"Exposure" follows Rita after the events of the last book. Rita, still a forensic photographer is dealing with the fallout of everyone knowing she sees ghosts. And using what she learned to go after corrupt cops has her being seen as the enemy by those in the police force. Rita though is determined to get her job back, and when called to a horrific scene, she realizes that she may never be healed enough to do her job. The book then jumps between Rita and someone unknown who grows up determined to "heal" those Natives that he sees in New Mexico by killing them and sending them to heaven. Using the frigid temperatures to mask what he is doing, he's gone unnoticed, until now.

I liked all of the parts with both Rita and the serial killer, but honestly, it felt like I was reading two separate books. It didn't help that in the end, Rita was not necessary to the outcome of this story at all. It felt like she got shoehorned in. I think Emerson wanted to tell a bigger story about war, alcoholism, and the effects of the Church on the Native population in New Mexico. And she was trying to do so, but it just didn't work with Rita's chapters and points of view.

Shifting between the dual POVs caused the flow to not really work at all. I felt disjointed while reading between the two of them and never got settled into the story the way I did in the first book.

The setting of New Mexico reads bleak throughout this book. Except when Emerson has Rita go back to the reservation. I was just in New Mexico and was picturing some of the things described, the highways, reservations, etc. and that was nice that I had a picture in my head from visiting that matched this book.

The ending leaves things slightly unfinished for Rita, but no idea if Emerson plans on another book in this series.