Source: Publisher
Description: 2024. Recently-engaged city girl Cora is new to the small town of Hickory Falls. Still adjusting to the change in pace, she’s delighted when she stumbles upon a quaint estate sale. Drawn in by the knickknacks, she buys a jar of colorful baubles and is surprised to find two rings at the bottom of the jar. When she innocently sets out to find the original owner of the rings, she instead stumbles upon a decades-old mystery.
1953. Clarity Grey should’ve known better than to get involved with a married man, but their connection went too deep to ignore. When he divorces his wife for her, they marry and she gets the family life she’s always dreamed of, with a new stepdaughter and a child of her own. But just as suddenly, her new life slips out of her hands when she simply vanishes, never to be seen or heard of again. Clarity is labeled as flaky and a homewrecker, so nobody in town takes her disappearance seriously--until Cora, seventy years later.
Genre: Mystery
Why I Picked This Book: The premise grabbed me and I can never resist a new mystery.
My Impression: I do love a cold case and am always a fan of digging into secrets. I was completely on board at the beginning when Cora goes to the daughter of the family who had the estate sale. The writing pulled me in with just enough descriptiveness and fairly solid pacing throughout. The mystery also kept me guessing and I wasn't really sure what had happened until the very end.
That said this wasn't a win for me. While I had no problem reading it and went through it fairly quickly I never could really say that I liked it and I definitely wasn't a fan of the characters. I was sympathetic to Cora even though she was frustrating, but I didn't really care for anyone else in the book. Her relationship with her fiancée Elliot definitely not one I was rooting for as he came off as dismissive and didn't really seem interested in her. I think it would have helped if Cora had her own life in Hickory Falls but instead it just seemed until she found the rings Cora was just sitting around waiting for Elliot and his mother to come up with plans.
I didn't dislike this book and I did find the pacing and the writing well done and always kept me reading when I picked it up. My problem was I didn't always want to pick it up and felt no connection to the characters. There were also a few plotlines - especially involving Charity's family and the cemetery - that I would have liked to have seen developed a bit more.
Would I Read More of this Series/Author? I would probably try another book by this author. While this one didn't work for me, I did like the writing style and would read another book if the plot interested me enough.
Would I Recommend this Book? Maybe - while this didn't work for me it might be worth a try especially if you're not a character driven reader.
* I received this book in exchange for an honest review. As always my opinions and impressions are completely my own. *
Sorry this one wasn't better.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with Lark. I like the cover. I had another blogging friend who didn't love this one either. Might try it one day, but there are just so many books, right? LOL
ReplyDeleteSo a few plus factors with some minus ones that dragged it down. I do like to like my characters though and connect to them.
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