Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by outofoffice_reading
Jinx by Jessica Huntley
3.0
This is quite a challenging book to give a star rating to because, personally, I think it was marketed wrong. Taken at face value as a thriller, I could give this 2⭐️, but reframe it as a murder mystery, second chance, enemies to lovers romance… then I’m willing to give it 4⭐️.
Set in different timelines and multiple POVs, Jinx follows Aimee Price in her short Army career and then catches up with her 12 years later, when one of her former colleagues has been murdered and the man she saved in Afghanistan is the prime suspect.
The author is a veteran, so the chapters dealing with Aimee’s Army experience are excellent. I am unsure of the authors experience with law enforcement, but this is where the whole thing fell apart for me. Having worked in the public sector and undergone the security clearance needed to work with the police, it is beyond unbelievable that Aimee could have hidden her past Army experience. And I can’t imagine a police force ever being so lackadaisical with a civilians ininvolvement in questioning a murder suspect… especially when they’ve just found out that civilian lied about her past, knew the victim and knows the suspect?!
Aimee continued to lie throughout the book, and honestly most of the time the things she was lying about just made no sense. Jones was right when he called DI Fields, DI Dimwit, because he really really was.
There was just too much going on, we had the mystery, the murder, the investigation, found family, army warfare, PTSD, rehabilitation, romance, mistaken identity. It was too much to make a cohesive thriller. I did like the twist at the end but it felt corny thrown in with everything else.
I think this would have been better as a second chance romance, focusing on Aimee recovering from her traumatic time in the Army and finding her place in the world. We could have still found out about James’s life after Aimee jilted him, we could have learnt more about Jone’s life etc I loved Aimee’s female friendships so would have taken more of that storyline too.
Set in different timelines and multiple POVs, Jinx follows Aimee Price in her short Army career and then catches up with her 12 years later, when one of her former colleagues has been murdered and the man she saved in Afghanistan is the prime suspect.
The author is a veteran, so the chapters dealing with Aimee’s Army experience are excellent. I am unsure of the authors experience with law enforcement, but this is where the whole thing fell apart for me. Having worked in the public sector and undergone the security clearance needed to work with the police, it is beyond unbelievable that Aimee could have hidden her past Army experience. And I can’t imagine a police force ever being so lackadaisical with a civilians ininvolvement in questioning a murder suspect… especially when they’ve just found out that civilian lied about her past, knew the victim and knows the suspect?!
Aimee continued to lie throughout the book, and honestly most of the time the things she was lying about just made no sense. Jones was right when he called DI Fields, DI Dimwit, because he really really was.
There was just too much going on, we had the mystery, the murder, the investigation, found family, army warfare, PTSD, rehabilitation, romance, mistaken identity. It was too much to make a cohesive thriller. I did like the twist at the end but it felt corny thrown in with everything else.
I think this would have been better as a second chance romance, focusing on Aimee recovering from her traumatic time in the Army and finding her place in the world. We could have still found out about James’s life after Aimee jilted him, we could have learnt more about Jone’s life etc I loved Aimee’s female friendships so would have taken more of that storyline too.