carolesrandomlife

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life.

3 Stars

I am always looking for something out of the ordinary to read so I like to try new authors quite frequently. I have seen Joy Fielding's books but had not yet read anything by this author so I thought it was time to check out her writing since I love a good mystery. I am glad that I made the decision to read this book because I was completely pulled into this story.

I want to warn other readers right away that this story deals with the subject of rape because I think that this book may be somewhat traumatic for some readers. I was really expecting a run of the mill mystery and was a bit shocked when rape entered the story. I think it is really a brave choice to have such a heavy focus on a such a horrible crime and its aftermath.

Bailey is working as a private investigator at a law firm doing surveillance on the night that she is attacked and severely injured. She doesn't know who attacked her and can only give the police very little information to go on to find her attacker. Bailey has a really tough time dealing with the rape and I wanted to smack every single person in her life for not making sure that she got the help that she so desperately needed.

Quite a few characters in this story were very unlikable. Her brother, Heath, was absolutely useless. Gene seemed to try take over anytime he was around. Travis and Sean were not good for Bailey to be around. Not only were many of these characters unlikeable they brought more problems to Bailey that she did not need.

My favorite character in the story was Bailey's niece, Jade. She said what she thought and didn't sugar coat anything but it was obvious that she did care about Bailey. Claire became very close to Bailey during the story and really seemed to step up and actually give her the help she needed. I liked Bailey but it was really hard at times to be so close to her thoughts. I wanted to get her to a therapist's office right away. I understand her need to find out who is was that attacked her but her accusations of nearly every man she came in contact with became almost tedious at time.

There ended up being two real mysteries to solve by the end of the book. I am not sure that I can completely buy into how either of them were resolved. I really feel a bit let down by how the book ended to be absolutely honest which is really a shame. Overall I found this book to be very well written and I would recommend it to other readers. I really had a hard time putting it down so it was really hard to see the ending fall so flat.

I received a copy of this book from Random House Publishing - Ballantine via NetGalley for the purpose of providing an honest review.