4.25 Stars
Camille Baybliss wants out of her marriage. But to be free
of her controlling husband she has to find evidence of his bad deeds.
Aubrey Price wants justice for her parents who were killed
in a car accident ten years prior. The
man convicted insists he’s innocent and believes there’s evidence to prove it.
Camille and Aubrey’s paths cross as their opposite worlds
begin to come together, intensifying after Camille’s husband, Ben, is found
murdered.
But are they allies or alibis?
This book pulled me in right from the start. I didn’t have any problem getting into it, and it had an engaging premise.
As far as the characters went, I liked Aubrey, Deacon, and Hank
(Ben’s law partner). While Aubrey and
Camille are presented as the focus of the story, Hank is really the one who
serves in a type of detective role for this mystery. I can’t honestly say
though that I understood what he saw in Camille. She just came across as naïve and
privileged. Nice but lacking substance. She’s essentially a doormat heroine who
seemed like she stuck her head in the sand most of her life.
I wish Ben would have been better developed. For the most
part, I believe the intention was for him to be a jerk, which he was. But then
some of the flashback scenes made him a little more sympathetic and I had to
wonder if he and Camille had just communicated better….well then part of the
mystery wouldn’t exist. (The fact that she walks out when he finally seems to
be giving her answers made her particularly frustrating.)
On that note, there are some cliched tropes sprinkled
throughout the novel. It’s annoying when characters know there’s a threat, yet
they are too trusting/not suspicious when they should naturally be on guard.
The story isn’t super twisty. While the end did come full circle to the
title and had a good closing line, it also felt a little abrupt and wrapped up
quickly.
The romance reader in me would have like to have seen Aubrey
and Deacon’s relationship more fleshed out. (You can take that literally too.) They
had good chemistry and a little steam to the novel might have helped make up
for the somewhat anticlimactic reveals on the mystery end.
The non-linear story is told via Camille, Aubrey, Hank, and
Ben’s first-person point of view alternating from the past and the present,
both before and after the murder.
*Title borrowed from the library’s e-loan app. All reviews written by Book-Bosomed Book Blog are honest opinions.
