From back cover:
Kaine Prescott is no stranger to death. When her husband died two years ago, her pleas for further investigation into his suspicious demise fell on deaf ears. In desperate need of a fresh start, Kaine purchases an old house sight unseen in her grandfather's Wisconsin hometown. But one look at the eerie, abandoned house immediately leaves her questioning her rash decision. And when the house's dark history comes back with a vengeance, Kaine is forced to face the terrifying realization she has nowhere left to hide.
A century earlier, the house on Foster Hill holds nothing but painful memories for Ivy Thorpe. When an unidentified woman is found dead on the property, Ivy is compelled to discover her identity. Ivy's search leads her into dangerous waters, resurrecting painful memories and forcing a reunion with the man who broke her heart. Can Ivy unravel the mystery and find a renewed hope before any other lives-including her own-are lost?
Sadly, this book was really disappointing. While advertised as more of a mystery/thriller type of book, with a murder, hints at a dark backstory, and a mysterious old house on the cover, it sounded pretty interesting. Unfortunately though, the story fell flat.
Between underdeveloped and boring characters, switching back and forth between characters, and way too many plot lines, this was just
a very hard to book to get through.
I found Ivy to be slightly more interesting as she was a bit of an outcast. People didn't really understand her and she seemed to like it that way. For instance, Ivy's relationship with Joel was a bit weird too. There was a history between them and it was very obvious as to what had happened. The author tried to make it seem like it was a big mystery, but it felt a bit like when someone is having a conversation about you while you are sitting right there. You know exactly what is going on but the people talking about you are pretending not to see you.
Kaine, to me, was rather annoying. She just seemed all over the place and jumped to the extreme in every circumstance. There was just so much going on with her it was ridiculous. And then there was the story with her husband, who we really don't get to know anything about except the fact he is basically perfect. Kaine, on the other hand, doesn't sound like she was a very good wife. She pushed him away and cared more about her job than she did her marriage, and we aren't really given a reason why.
And then there was the whole stalker plot line revolving around Danny's death that just pushed the story over the top for me. It just didn't make any sense and was so poorly done with the ending and the 'why' just kind of thrown in there. It left me thinking, "Really? That was it?" It was just a big let down.
I found the relationship between Grant and Kaine to be a bit silly. It was just too forced and moved too fast. There was no tension or any reason for the reader to want them to get together. I mean, Kaine is supposed to be a grieving widow, yet the second she sees Grant she is practically ready to pledge her undying love to him.
The only characters I found to be somewhat interesting were Joy and Megan. And I was disappointed they didn't have more of a role in the story.
Basically it just seemed like the author plucked a bunch of suspenseful sounding things out of thin air and tried to shove them all into one book. I'm a fan of true crime podcasts, so when it was mentioned that the body was stuffed into a tree, it reminded me of the Hagley Woods murder. (Here is a podcast about the case if you're interested.) I guess it was wishful thinking to hope that maybe the book would be a new take on that case!
This was a really hard review to write as I hate sounding so negative towards this book, but I just felt like there were so many instances where the story could have really gone somewhere and it
just let me down every single time.
I'd like to end on a positive note and say that I do this this author has promise. I think I would like to check back in once she's written a few books and see if there's improvement.
I received this book from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review.
Have you ever read a book that sounded great but ended up being disappointing?
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