Cross Your Heart by Kierney Scott

Cross Your Heart
by Kierney Scott

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Published by: Amazon Digital Publish Date: April 25, 2018
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Three young girls are missing. All of them cold cases. All of them forgotten. But when Detective Jess Bishop identifies a disturbing link between them, she’s determined to find out what happened, and fights to re-open their cases. At the scene of each abduction the kidnapper left a clue – a small bag of candy – in place of the missing child. And then a fourth child is taken. Eight-year-old Ava is snatched from her hospital bed and when a bag of candy is found in her room, Jessica knows it’s the same kidnapper. As the pressure to solve the case pushes Jess and her team to breaking point, Jess takes a personal risk she fears she’ll live to regret. But she has no choice. Out of hospital, Ava can only get sicker: Jess is running out of time. Can she find Ava before it’s too late?

I typically like thrillers about detective work, cold cases, missing persons, and protagonists with a past. This book had all of those elements, so I was looking forward to reading it.

Immediately, I felt as if I should have read Book 1 in the series prior to reading the Book 2. I received this one as an ARC and was slightly confused about the references to the first installment, including what exactly happened to Detective Bishop to cause the mutilation to her hand. The author mentioned she cut it on glass while trying to escape from the perpetrator in the first book, but it was very foggy and unclear. I would have liked more of an explanation to tie it to her issues of PTSD in present day.

While she was on leave from her injuries, Det. Bishop spent time looking over cold case files. She found 3 cases in which there was a common denominator: blue cotton candy under the fingernails of the deceased children. Predictably, upon her return to work, none of her colleagues believe there is a serial killer out there targeting children by giving them blue cotton candy. Even more predictably, the next day, a fourth child is taken and blue cotton candy is found at the scene.

With those obvious issues with the beginning of the story, I was tempted to stop reading. I was worried that the plot would be transparent and wouldn't keep my interest. However, I pressed on.

Ultimately, I never saw the ending coming. The identity of the killer was surprising and unique. I enjoyed that twist.

While I found the story driven and surprising, I only gave this 3.5 stars as I don't think I'll be reading any more books in the series. I fear I'd have to go back and read the first one in order to really know what's going on in the overall arc.

TTT: Top 5 Best Books I Read in 2015

From the Broke & the Bookish
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5 Best Books I Read in 2015
For NA:

Prick: A Stepbrother Romance by Sabrina Paige - HEA for young adults is sometimes hard for me to swallow, but this author made it feel realistic. It was HOT.

Schooled by Piper Lawson - I'm reading the second book now! Lex is a smart, interesting MC who falls, though she tries not to, for her best friend's little brother Dylan. It was well-written and made me want to read more by this author!

Everything Has Changed by Mia Kayla - Atypical of NA, this wasn't a hot and heavy book, but rather a natural journey showing two people who know each other so well but are so close that they can't actually see that the other loves them as more than a friend. Worth the read.


Memoir:

The Reluctant Psychic by Suzan Saxman & Perdita Finn - While there were times that I really couldn't identify with the things Suzan was into, including the men she was interested in, the book showed her natural journey to self-discovery as an oracle and finding her place in the world. It was grounded, which I wasn't expecting.


Thriller/Mystery

Sparrow 59 by Devon Ashley - I'm pretty much dying for the 2nd book to come out! It was labeled "The Bourne Identity meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith for the new adult crowd," and I loved every second of it!

No One Knows by JT Ellison

No One Knows
by JT Ellison

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Published by: Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books Publish Date: March 22, 2016
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Rating: 3 Stars
NOTICE: I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The day Aubrey Hamilton’s husband is declared dead by the state of Tennessee should bring closure so she can move on with her life. But Aubrey doesn’t want to move on. She just wants Josh back. It’s been five years since he disappeared, since their blissfully happy marriage—they were happy, weren’t they?—screeched to a halt and Aubrey became the prime suspect in his disappearance. Five years of emptiness, solitude, loneliness, questions. Why didn’t Josh show up at his friend’s bachelor party? Who anonymously sent Aubrey her favorite cocktail at the bar where Josh stood her up? Was he murdered? Did he run away? And now, all this time later, who is the mysterious and strangely familiar figure suddenly haunting her new life?

As her heroine faces the possibility that everything she thinks she knows about herself, her marriage, and her husband is a lie, New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison expertly peels back the layers of a complex woman who is hiding dark secrets beneath her unassuming exterior. In a masterful thriller for readers who love Gillian Flynn, Liane Moriarty, and Paula Hawkins, Ellison pulls you into a you’ll-never-guess merry-go-round of danger and deception. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops…no one knows.

This is a hard book to review. I thought the book was well-written overall, the 3-dimensional characters, the conflict among them viable, and the mystery that kept me interested. I won't say anything more as I don't want to give anything away. For my taste, then end was . . . well . . . a little too Gillian Flynn Gone Girl for me. It seemed rushed, and while their were clues along the way that vaguely explained what happens to Aubrey at the end, I just didn't buy it. I didn't buy any of it. You'll have to read and decide yourself.

Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell

Pretty Is
by Maggie Mitchell

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Published by: Henry Holt & Company Publish Date: July 7, 2015
Genre: Psycholical, Kidnapping, Character-Driven
Rating: 3.5 Stars
NOTICE: I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Everyone thought we were dead. We were missing for nearly two months; we were twelve. What else could they think? --Lois

It's always been hard to talk about what happened without sounding all melodramatic. . . . Actually, I haven't mentioned it for years, not to a goddamned person. --Carly May

When precocious Lois and pretty Carly May were twelve years old, they were kidnapped, driven across the country, and held in a cabin in the woods for two months by a charismatic stranger. Maggie Mitchell's spellbinding debut Pretty Is is about the repercussions of that formative summer, when two girls who previously did not know each other shared an experience that would shape all their days to come.

At the novel's start, Lois Lonsdale has begun teaching British literature at a small college in upstate New York. Out in LA, Chloe Savage (formerly Carly May) is a lonely actress, drinking too much and struggling to revive her career. When a movie script with a shockingly familiar plot comes into their lives, the women must grapple with unresolved losses and gains that have lain hidden for years behind the public's feverish presumptions.

While the basis of the story is the kidnapping of two pre-teens, seemingly at random, the author chooses instead to focus on how that short amount of time altered who the girls are in present-day, even alluding that their time with the stranger was more pleasant than the lives they were stolen away from. It's not your typical, formulaic kidnapping story, and I liked that.

The basis for the plot is that Lois wrote a fictionalized account of their two months of entrapment under a nom de plume. The successful best-seller is now being made into a movie with the focus on the fictional lead detective who tracked down the kidnapper and saved the day. In a strange twist of fate, Carly May, now known as actress Chloe, is cast in that role. What at first seems like a straight forward plot of flashbacks of their time with Zed the kidnapper and the coming together of the girls in their adult lives veers off course into Ms. Mitchell's real area of expertise: a long, deep look at the psychological motivations of Zed, Lois and Carly May, then and now. While that too sounds predictable, the author turns that tired plot device on its head when we realize Zed wasn't a horrible monster and that the girls actually liked being chosen by Zed and taken away from their previously unhappy living conditions.

While I felt it took too long for the women to reunite and I felt cheated that we never really did find out who Zed was or why he did what he did, the book was satisfying on the merits of characterization and psychology alone.