Rating: 7.5
General Rating: Great suspense but a little congested. Found this gem at a reading library at a NC Preserve!
Who should read: Mystery and Women’s fiction lovers.
Skip factor: 2% toward the end. I’m not rating this as high but it did keep my attention.
Summary: I began writing this summary and realized there are so many moving parts to this story. I’ll try to be brief.
Lily, an attorney, marries Ed only to realize he was under pressure to marry before age thirty for his inheritance. Next, his old girlfriend comes back into the picture, and Lily never feels Ed completely loves her. Life isn’t easy. Ed is a failing artist; he has an affair; Ed and Lily have a mentally challenged son. No wonder Lily develops feelings for a man in prison, Joe, whose case she appeals. After his verdict is reversed, she wins notoriety but then realizes, Joe really was a murdered.
Enter a beautiful but not-so-nice, little Italian girl, Carla. Ed paints her. Wins some respect for his paintings, and yatta, yatta, yatta, the girl comes back into their life years later to have an affair with Ed. By then, Lily is an accomplished attorney. What she doesn’t know is Joe has been helping her by providing clues to her secretary. Yikes. That’s when it stopped being believable for me.
Characters:
I didn’t love anyone in this book. I particularly couldn’t understand why Lily liked Joe.
Storyline & Writing: I am combining these two elements because I thought the author threw in too many side stories and it became unbelievable, yet the writing was good enough to keep my attention. The many moving parts made me feel like the author had backed herself into a corner and was struggling to get herself out. She never came back to address Ed’s family and the inheritance. (I was waiting for that.) Yet! What the heck? I read eighty percent of this fast and furiously.
Read this author again? Yes, I want to try her again. I’d like to see if her next book is as congested.
Read on!
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CJ Zahner is the author of The Suicide Gene, a psychological thriller, Dream Wide Awake and Project Dream, two crime thrillers with sixth-sense components, Friends Who Move Couches and Don’t Mind Me, I Came with the House, women’s fiction. Zahner’s Dream Series novels were inspired by Zahner’s own experiences. Listen to her interview about her 9/11 a premonition here. Download her Beyond Reality Radio podcast here. Listen to her Online Book Circle podcast here.
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