The Scarlet Pen

Initially I found the MC to be very difficult to get to know. She was so meteoric that I never knew how she was going to react to a given situation. She seemed to have a sincere faith, though, and I really liked that about her.

Clay was consistent and enjoyable as a character, and I enjoyed his friends as well, though they were not strongly developed characters in their own right.

Stephen was too obviously the villain from the beginning, and that took away some of the fun of trying to solve things. A number of the things he did simply didn't make sense to me, motivationally. As the historical subject of the book, I was very disappointed to learn that a very large number of things about him had been changed. I didn't understand why he managed to control his rage enough to quit killing near the end of the book. Psychologically that is very rare, and generally it's from some form of life change that might diffuse their anger or distract them—the need to start over in a new town didn't make sense for this sort of killer, since he killed in more than one area and didn't have a strict ritual. Well, come to find out, he did no such thing and the killings were becoming closer and closer together until he was caught. That would make psychological sense. Why change that? Why focus a book on a criminal and then change at least half of the things known about him? I understand the quandary between two different historical records, but the changes were about things known to history for sure. Very puzzling.

The last 25% of the book was a completely different flavor of story and the timeline became very choppy once Emma's romance resolved. It was difficult to stay invested in the ending because it was so choppy.

Overall, a promising book that failed to deliver a satisfying story arc.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free reading copy. A favorable review was not required.