Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I typically enjoy family dramas—whether romance or mystery/suspense/thriller—especially when based around either a large family or sisters (as I had a large, sisters-only family growing up). Unfortunately, this book took too many wrong turns for me. The plot seems all over the place, with some odd twists that just made little sense for the characters or the larger story. Plot shouldn’t seem random or just use devices typical of a genre. The dialogue was terrible (as were some deep-characterization thoughts), not the way people actually talk or think… at least I hope they don’t. There isn’t a single likable character (maybe the missing sister… if we’d seen more of her), and the men seem to especially get the short end of the stick. The sisters’ husbands, in particular, are particularly awful. Especially Holly’s (the protagonist’s) husband. Goodness, some of the things he said to her!! For a domestic suspense, the initial suspense (the frightened phone call, discovering the sister missing) was the ONLY suspenseful part until after the 75% mark. So, not much of a suspense novel! For a bit, I felt I was just waiting for something to happen in the present storyline; I almost DNFed the book because of it. The soggy middle spends too much time on backstory and flitting between different points of view… pace killers in most books and certainly in this one... The ending felt anti-climactic… utterly too easy and unbelievable given the characters’ deep histories and present ways of being. By the way, the book does have some profanity, which I never like to read; I didn’t think it helped either tension or characterization. Not recommended. I received a free copy of this book but that did not affect my review.