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A review by bookph1le
A Distant Grave by Sarah Stewart Taylor
2.0
This book was kind of a letdown, considering how much I enjoyed the first book.
Partially my irritation was due to Maggie's behavior. She seems obsessed with her job to the point of willful ignorance of what her daughter is going through, and that makes me wonder if the elements of the book just didn't blend well. The reader is supposed to believe what's happening with Lilly is of great concern to Maggie, but it's hard to get that sense when Maggie goes trotting off to investigate her case rather than focus on her daughter.
I also wasn't as invested in the mystery this time, and I wonder if that's because the first case was so personal that shifting to a more impersonal one made it harder for me to connect with it. I found that the memory device in this one didn't work as well either. When the memories were Maggie's in book one, they didn't feel out of place with the rest of the book the way they did here, when we're getting memories from someone who's a complete stranger to Maggie.
The pacing didn't do it for me either. It took a long time for things to really get going with regard to the mystery, and I would have liked to have been more drawn into it earlier in the book.
Overall, this book was jarring to me. After going from a deeply personal book in which we knew only Maggie and the people closest to her, she suddenly has a partner I don't remember figuring into the previous book. It was almost like reading books from two different series. Plus, I didn't like the way this one was tied up because it felt too convenient and because I saw it coming long before it happened.
I may still give a third book a shot, if there is one, but I'm surprised by how wide the gulf is between my enjoyment of the first and how I felt about this one.
Partially my irritation was due to Maggie's behavior. She seems obsessed with her job to the point of willful ignorance of what her daughter is going through, and that makes me wonder if the elements of the book just didn't blend well. The reader is supposed to believe what's happening with Lilly is of great concern to Maggie, but it's hard to get that sense when Maggie goes trotting off to investigate her case rather than focus on her daughter.
I also wasn't as invested in the mystery this time, and I wonder if that's because the first case was so personal that shifting to a more impersonal one made it harder for me to connect with it. I found that the memory device in this one didn't work as well either. When the memories were Maggie's in book one, they didn't feel out of place with the rest of the book the way they did here, when we're getting memories from someone who's a complete stranger to Maggie.
The pacing didn't do it for me either. It took a long time for things to really get going with regard to the mystery, and I would have liked to have been more drawn into it earlier in the book.
Overall, this book was jarring to me. After going from a deeply personal book in which we knew only Maggie and the people closest to her, she suddenly has a partner I don't remember figuring into the previous book. It was almost like reading books from two different series. Plus, I didn't like the way this one was tied up because it felt too convenient and because I saw it coming long before it happened.
I may still give a third book a shot, if there is one, but I'm surprised by how wide the gulf is between my enjoyment of the first and how I felt about this one.