Not as entertaining or absorbing as it means to be.
Mystery and skulduggery in an upscale Colorado subdivision.
A vandal is disrupting the peaceful facade of Cottonwood Estates, spray-painting graffiti, bashing carved pumpkins, and breaking a window in a private home. This miscreant is an emblem of what lies beneath this family-friendly community—secrets, lies, betrayals, and worse. The story focuses on three members of the Cottonwood Book Club: Annie Perley, who has a complicated past and a teenage daughter suddenly acting strangely; Jen Pagano, who’s put her career on hold to deal with her violence-prone 13-year-old son; and Lena Meeker, a new book-club recruit who’s older, wealthier, and lonelier than the others. Something terrible happened in Cottonwood 15 years ago, and Lena was directly involved (exactly how, we don’t know). Author Heller interrupts the present-day narrative with occasional flashbacks that provide clues about who did what to whom. Overall, the novel is intended as frothy fun with serious undertones. There are some clever digs at suburbia—for example, Annie’s worried musings about her kids: “Should Hank and Laurel be composing oboe concertos? Why haven’t they written cookbooks for charity?” And the book club’s selections are amusingly eclectic, from Lolita to something called The Spicy Hot Marriage. As for drama, Jen’s anguish over son Abe—who may or may not be the vandal—seems authentic. But much of the book is overly familiar. The characters are hard to differentiate at first, and it's hard to care about them. The plot twists often seem arbitrary, if not unbelievable. Too many of the characters “feel a bitter taste in their throat”—or words to that effect—in tense moments. And the big reveals at the end may leave readers a bit puzzled.
Not as entertaining or absorbing as it means to be.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-20581-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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