Wrong Alibi

I really teetered with my rating for this one and am so sad to rate it a one. But by the end everything just unraveled and became so ridiculous I no longer cared about the ending. That coupled with all the other issues I had leaves me no choice but to give this a one star.

I do want to start by saying I think the author did a great job of setting up the premise, the setting and Evelyn as a character. I really enjoyed that and that part was well written.

I had a really big issue with the dialouge, however. It was so stilted and really made the plot tough to follow. Maybe its because its an arc and some of it will get cleaned up before the book releases. Some of the characters felt just so weak and one dimensional too and I just honestly did not get the point of them being there.

Finally, the weird inclusion of the super weird romantic subplot just threw me all the way off. Just, why? And the writing there was very dry. Almost like the author didn't even want to include it but was forced to by an editor or something. Just seemed unnecessary and very unbelievable.

I wish we had focused in more on Evelyn's background, how it related to her mom, and the mystery only and left it at that.

*I was provided a free ARC by the publisher

Solid Escapism. This is one of those books with enough twists and turns that it truly provides a great deal of effective escapism - even if you manage to put it down, you're going to be wondering what can possibly happen next. As a setup to a series... I'm interested to see where it goes from here, honestly. To me, it didn't really feel too “setup” ish and almost completely read like a true standalone book. There weren't any real threads left dangling here, so other than setting up the backstory of the primary character and a few key supporting characters.... like I said, not overly obvious what this series will entail. Which is unusual for a Book 1. Still, in and of itself this was an excellent twisty mystery/ action book, though the climax did feel a bit abrupt. Overall a fun read, and very much recommended.