Meredith Doench

Is it weird that while reading almost this entire book I had a ball of anger just burning int he pit of my stomach? It wasn't that the writing or the author or the novel was bad, actually they were all awesome. Instead it was what was going on the page that just made me just so so mad. Because, even though this book is fiction, I know that the sort of thing that was going in the plot also goes on every day. Trying to 'turn' people back to being straight happens too damn frequently even though it's freakin' 2015.

Okay. My rant about the world is over. Back to the actual novel.

I thought that it was sort of a cross between a Katherine V. Forrest Kate Delafield Series novel and a Tess Gerritsen thriller. Although I liked the main character, Luce, much more than I do Kate, and somehow the most thrillerish part of this novel at the end was even more intense than most of Gerritsen's.

The main character, Luce, is an Ohio BCI agent. She gets called to a possible serial killer case in a place with many childhood memories. It's also the place where her first girlfriend Marci died.

She gets paired up with a retired Detective and he and Luce clash a lot as they try to figure out what (if any) connection an ex-gay ministry has to do with the murders and so much of even one's past is dredged up.

At the same time Luce and her partner (romantically, not BCI-wise), Rowan, an artist, are going through a rocky patch in their relationship and that was a captivating story as well.

It was an all around great novel and definitely one of the most intense thrillers I've read recently.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books.… (more)