Kate Alice Marshall

Nathan is a cartoon villain. This was all just boring. I finished it because I wanted to know how or if certain plot lines were connected. They were not. Barely anything was. Marshall repeated herself over and over. I felt like I didn't entirely know the characters beyond what Marshall kept repeating about them, and worse, as the book continued, I realized I didn't want to. These were supposed to be distinct sisters, so different from one another because that's how books written like this work. I welcome that. These characters were not that. Their voices quickly blended, and I gave up on flipping back to chapter headings to remind myself who was narrating. At least fifty pages should have been cut. There were tons of Dead Herrings in here. Thanks to Das Sporking for the term. The foreshadowing was juvenile. The plot needed to be tightened. This was not intended as a character study, but that's what it wound up being. Few mysteries or thrillers can pull off being character studies.

I feel bad for Marshall, because she was clearly trying. I saw the coding for what she was trying to do, and I wanted it to work. It did not. An excellent example of a character study with thriller elements is "Seven Types of Ambiguity" by Elliot Perlman. I feel like--if she was aware of that book, this one could have been different. I tried to read other books of hers and they did not grab me, but that was for totally different reasons. I want to read works of hers if she writes in the future. I want to like something of hers.… (meer)

A long, drawn out and repetitive domestic drama.

Fourteen years ago a wealthy couple, Randolph and Irene Palmer, were gunned down in their beautiful home. Suspicion falls on one of their daughters, Emma, but Juliette and Daphne (her sisters) might also be guilty. No arrests were ever made. All left Arden Hills and made lives elsewhere. Now, however, Emma returns to her childhood home because her husband, Nathan Gates, has lost his job and she is expecting their first child and they need a place to live. Because she shares ownership with the sisters she hasn’t spoken to in years, Emma feels that it is time to reconnect and make decisions. Nathan does not know any details about Emma’s past. Unfortunately, the memories of the night of the murders are murky and no one is quite certain about what really happened.

Does that description sound confusing? The whole narrative flips between then and now and no one is able to do more than guess about what happened and who did what the night of the murders. That and the constant repetition and uncertainty made this whole book quite annoying. I didn’t care for any of the characters - they were all unlikeable as they tried to justify their behaviors through faulty reasoning. The writing style and the melodrama did not appeal. The attempts at twists and shocking revelations missed the mark. In short, I did not like the story.

I listened to the audiobook while reading along in the e-book ARC provided by the publisher and was quite disappointed with the narrator as she attempted to do all the voices with most everyone sounding the same. She definitely had some overly dramatic moments. This would have benefited with a multicast performance.

Overall, not at all to my taste.… (meer)