Love You To Death by Caroline Mitchell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I can see I’m in the minority, but unfortunately this didn’t really work for me. In a few short words the synopsis summarises the entire set up, so there is zero tension in the first 50% of the book, at which point the police draw the conclusion we’ve known since page 1: for half the book you know the why and you know the how. Fortunately, the who was quite a surprise, which was good, albeit as part of a chaotic ending.
My main hang-up was the clunky or overly-dramatic sentences with far too much use of a thesaurus and not enough of an editor: e.g “Lucy swivelled her head up and down the road”; “the stench assaulting her nostrils”; “reignited the feeling of foreboding that had shadowed her entry”; “Ruby inhaled a sharp intake of breath”; and “His eyes darkened and he gave her the look. It was the look which told her he knew everything that had been going on in her life since she left him the year before. “
The characters of Ruby, Nathan, Luddy and Downes were quite well-developed and I enjoyed the second half of the book more; as I said, the whodunit was not obvious. I am grateful to NetGalley and Bookouture for the opportunity to read this book.
juliapalooza.com 