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dawnlaw's review against another edition
5.0
This book was fantastic, it sucked me in from the first page and I couldn't put it down. I can't wait to start the next one in the series.
outofoffice_reading's review against another edition
4.0
This easily could have been a 5⭐️ read but there were two, pretty minor, things that really annoyed me:
“He was so slim any girl would be jealous.” - who says this?! And what is it with authors injecting female body insecurity where it literally has zero impact on the plot?! Major pet peeve and honestly I nearly DNF at this point.
The second was that the author constantly described smells, and it was just a bit much. It felt like they fixated onto this one element and the main character was always mentioning the smell of things. I found it odd and after the first few times it became jarring. Because again, it has no significance to the plot.
But overall, I loved this. It’s an excellent police procedural, well paced, decent characters (whether you liked them or not), it read pretty realistic and took care on sensitive subjects.
I’ve seen a lot of reviews comment that it was predictable but honestly I didn’t find that at all. Sally’s story certainly took a turn I did not expect.
“He was so slim any girl would be jealous.” - who says this?! And what is it with authors injecting female body insecurity where it literally has zero impact on the plot?! Major pet peeve and honestly I nearly DNF at this point.
The second was that the author constantly described smells, and it was just a bit much. It felt like they fixated onto this one element and the main character was always mentioning the smell of things. I found it odd and after the first few times it became jarring. Because again, it has no significance to the plot.
But overall, I loved this. It’s an excellent police procedural, well paced, decent characters (whether you liked them or not), it read pretty realistic and took care on sensitive subjects.
I’ve seen a lot of reviews comment that it was predictable but honestly I didn’t find that at all. Sally’s story certainly took a turn I did not expect.
calturner's review against another edition
3.0
A grim and dark crime debut from Rebecca Bradley. I found it to be a well written but disturbing novel, in fact it was probably a little bit too disturbing for my taste. It did take me a while to get into, but once the story got underway I began to enjoy it a great deal. DI Hannah Robbins is an intriguing character, and one who I look forward to seeing more of as the series continues. I do feel that the book could have done with a bit more humour to help break up the grimness, but overall I found it to be a good read and will definitely read the next book in the series once it's available.
A good, strong debut. 3.5 stars.
A good, strong debut. 3.5 stars.
melike_k's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Very gripping police procedural feels mainly realistic. Writing becomes a little convoluted and difficult to follow in areas but that is mainly because of the dark action packed nature of the book
h_loudavi5's review against another edition
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.0
katieeliza's review against another edition
3.0
With thanks to The Book Club for passing this book to me for review.
The plot was pretty solid but what prevents me from giving this book more stars is the writing style. Particularly at the beginning of the book, the author is so keen for the reader to know what is going on it can often feel forced. At times, the speech is often stilted too. This does improve towards the end of the book.
The plot is exactly what you would expect from this genre and it is, at times gripping.
The plot was pretty solid but what prevents me from giving this book more stars is the writing style. Particularly at the beginning of the book, the author is so keen for the reader to know what is going on it can often feel forced. At times, the speech is often stilted too. This does improve towards the end of the book.
The plot is exactly what you would expect from this genre and it is, at times gripping.
gcolston1832's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
alexjarvis's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't like this book as much as I had hoped. It sounded really interesting from the description but I was completely bored for the first half of it. I didn't care about any of the characters and everything was just kind of slow. There were also some parts of the writing that bothered me - mostly small things like missing or incorrectly placed commas. It's not that important of course but it still distracted me from the story.
It got better after the first half, though. I still felt like I didn't know enough about the main character to really care much about her but the story got more interesting at least.
The next part contains spoilers.
It was fairly obvious that Sally was going to die. Too obvious for my liking. Her behaviour was stupid and irresponsible (I know why she did it but that doesn't make it less stupid) and from the second she left that house it was completely clear that she was going to die. Even before that scene there were so many hints that something bad was going to happen to her, sometimes it seemed like that was all her character was about.
The ending was very abrupt. I know there's going to be more about "what happens next and how the team are coping with the events that occurred" in the next book and that's fine, the book still felt unfinished to me though.
All in all, the book was okay. It wasn't bad at all, I personally just didn't like it that much. I'll probably read the next one anyway though, maybe I'll like that one more.
It got better after the first half, though. I still felt like I didn't know enough about the main character to really care much about her but the story got more interesting at least.
The next part contains spoilers.
It was fairly obvious that Sally was going to die. Too obvious for my liking. Her behaviour was stupid and irresponsible (I know why she did it but that doesn't make it less stupid) and from the second she left that house it was completely clear that she was going to die. Even before that scene there were so many hints that something bad was going to happen to her, sometimes it seemed like that was all her character was about.
The ending was very abrupt. I know there's going to be more about "what happens next and how the team are coping with the events that occurred" in the next book and that's fine, the book still felt unfinished to me though.
All in all, the book was okay. It wasn't bad at all, I personally just didn't like it that much. I'll probably read the next one anyway though, maybe I'll like that one more.