4 stars

I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't this. I need to preface this with the fact that there were great parts of the sorry. I enjoyed watching Lucia evolve. There was something different about her before Josiah or the Los Lobos and started with her burning a bed.

I wanted Martinez to have a more pivotal role. Helping her heal didn't come in the way that I thought it would. At the end she is hurrying to go because she was wanted but it was not really fleshed out. Were there repercussions for who put her in that position? That is what I wanted. I needed to see how she got from point A to point B and how Martinez factory into that. I did like that at the end she got her two most important men. She deserved that at the least. ( )

serena akeroyd’s books always seem to leave me feeling so disappointed :/ i’ll get into the characters and into the story and then something always go sideways with her writing that ruins the whole book for me.
i skimmed quite a bit through this one (though i mainly felt like i was being impatient rather than it being an issue w the writing) its so frustrating that akeroyd **insists** on ending her books so suddenly and barely wrapped up. the moment the 3rd act starts akeroyd WHIPS the resolutions at you and then slams the door closed on your fingers. she wrapped up important plot lines in the EPILOGUE!! i mean really, i’m pretty sure akeroyd just gets bored and so she thinks its fine to halfass a conclusion in a couple of paragraphs and call it a day.

overall: this had all of akeroyd’s classic problems (too much inner monologuing combined w very little dialogue; strange jumps in narration; bad pacing; all talk no show; and an incredibly abrupt ending)

i’m thinking 3 tries is plenty for me to give this author ( )