From back cover:
Her photographs capture the beauty of Puget Sound. Do they also expose a darkness that someone would kill to keep buried?
After her husband, Jack, dies in a climbing incident, Shauna has only her five-year-old son and her helicopter charter business to live for. Every day is a struggle to make ends meet and she lives in a constant fear of losing even more than she already has.
When her business partner is murdered, his final words convince Shauna that she's in danger too. But where can she turn? Zach Bannister was her husband's best friend and is the person she blames for his death. She's barely spoken to Zach since. But right now he seems her only hope for protecting her son.
Zach is only too happy to assuage his guilt over Jack's death by helping Shauna any way he can. But there are secrets involved dating back to Shauna's childhood that more than one person would prefer to stay hidden.
When I first saw this book I was quite intrigued. The cover was really pretty and it's set in Washington state, which is where I'm from. While I enjoyed the story, it wasn't quite as good as I had hoped it would be. It was a bit slow at times and it took me way longer to get through than I would have expected. It just wasn't a real page-turner.
The characters were okay. There were a lot of characters to keep track of which made it a bit confusing at times as I couldn't always remember who each of the minor characters were. I also didn't really connect with Shauna or Zach. Shauna was the one I had the biggest issue with. She is supposed to be a Navy veteran yet none of her actions reflect that. For instance, she doesn't want to have or use a gun. I can maybe understand that she might just not like guns or something, but I would think wanting to protect your son from a killer would outweigh that fear. She was too much of a damsel in distress. Not capable to taking care of herself and always needing a man to do things for her.
The killer was another big issue for me. It was fairly easy to figure out who it was early on, and while I can live with that, the killer was just so inconsistent. He kills multiple people without a second thought, and then other times he has a conscience and doesn't want to kill. Each time he kills he does it in a totally different and extravagant way. And considering he wasn't a trained assassin, it just really made it unbelievable. Some instances being completely impossible to pull off.
There is also an instance where the killer is hiding out in Shauna's house waiting to kill her when she is home alone. Yet she is able to walk around, charge a phone enough to be able to look through it, and then leave and the killer never makes a move. I mean, come on! You have the perfect opportunity to make your move and you don't.
There were also quite a few inconsistencies in this book that frustrated me. One of the main ones being the plot line that is mentioned in the first paragraph of the synopsis is never finished. It's something that seems like it's going to play a big role in the story but then is never mentioned again.
Also the ending didn't make any sense. How exactly can one person overpower three men, tie them up, and keep a gun on them at the same time?
And while I did figure out who the killer was early on, the actual story behind what was going on was quite interesting. Without giving anything away, the plot revolved around something that was definitely unique (in a good way!) and not something I had ever really thought about before. I appreciated the author's creativity with it.
Overall, I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. There were parts of the story I did enjoy, and it had all the right ingredients to make a great story, but the execution just wasn't quite right. I've read quite a few of Colleen Coble's books and enjoyed them, but this one was just really lacking in a lot of places for me. I will probably pick up the next book in the series just to see where it goes.
I received an e-book copy of this book from NetGalley and Thomas Nelson Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
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