Tag: book reviews

Review : Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier

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Little Secrets

Jennifer Hillier’s latest release Little Secrets seemed to be a favorite with the majority of the bloggers who reviewed it . So , when I saw it on Audible , I decided to go for it  . This is my first Hillier read . A quick summary of the plot before going for my thoughts about the book .

Plot Summary :

Marin had the perfect  life  – she is a successful entrepreneur who owns a chain of upscale salons and is married to a successful entrepreneur . Three days before Christmas , her four year old son Sebastian is taken by a stranger dressed in a Santa suit when they were both doing the last minute Christmas shopping .  A year later , her life is a far cry from the ‘ perfect ‘ life she had before Sebastian went missing  – She and her husband rarely speak . She had attempted suicide once during the initial days when the nightmare had just begun and is undergoing therapy ( although it does not seem to be helping much . Alcohol seems to be doing a much better job than all the support group sessions and the therapy sessions ) . The only thing which kept her going is her hope that one day Sebastian might be found . Now , the PI whom she had hired to keep working on Sebastian ‘ s case after the FBI search went cold has stumbled upon her husband ‘ s affair with a much younger woman .

Kenzie Li  , an  art grad student working part – time as a barista is one of those millennials who think that her life in Instagram posts should emulate a luxury life even if her real life is actually a far cry from the glamorous pics she posts on Instagram . . . That ‘ s why she has had a string of rich , married men as boyfriends – they could help her with the bills ; exotic vacations and expensive gifts were also some of the perks she could expect from these men . Marin ‘ s husband Derek is her latest catch . There is only one cause for concern – she is falling for him , although it was never part of the plan  . . .

Marin is already upto the neck in one of the worst nightmares for any parent . She is not about to lose her husband also now . She is ready to do whatever it takes to save her marriage and all the family she is left with . . .

My thoughts on the book :

The missing child premise is not a wholly new premise in crime fiction . The missing child , the long – grieving mother and her dependence on alcohol & drugs , the father who is ( almost ) finished with grieving and wants to have a fresh start and the resulting distance between the parents threatening their marriage  – all these plot points which are the staples for this premise are there in Hillier ‘ s latest release .

The novel ‘s plot line of finding out how Marin would deal with this stranger who is a threat to her marriage when she is already dealing with the trauma of a  missing child is a promising one . But Hillier ‘ s writing left me wanting more . I was expecting more in – depth characterization (if not some detailed psychological profiling ) of the protagonist and her immediate friends and family .  Instead , the story reads like a pretty decent screenplay for a suspense movie where the dialogues made me wonder if I had not read these lines before .  While the story is well paced and kept me engaged , I felt that it could have been told better . . . However , there were some secondary characters – like Frances ( from the support group ) , whom I felt exuded more genuineness of characterization than even Marin – Kenzie duo who had nothing remotely memorable or original about them . I could easily forget them with all the other crime fiction protagonists I am going to read this year . Marin has the proverbial fury of the scorned woman – only she is keen on punishing her husband ‘ s mistress instead of the husband . Kenzie knows how to play it with the gullible men who fell head – over – heels ” in love ” with her like all every other mistress . Like any other mistress , she also seems to be finally falling for a man who was initially supposed to be yet another fling . Yes , she is beautiful ( Marin thinks so and feels somewhat insecure about her own middle – aged self  like any other wife would do with a mistress . ) . Both Marin & Kenzie are cut -out – of – the – template characters – the woman who had been cheated by the husband &  the other woman with just enough to keep them from becoming downright out – of -the – template characters . . .

There are very few authors who have the knack of feeding the nitty – gritty of the police procedural to the readers without the reader being aware of it or not making it sound like Criminology 101 for Dummies . . . Unfortunately this was another sore point for me with the book  when the author decided to spell out even the smallest thing to the readers .

There were some times when I felt that the character ‘ s actions were determined to align with the goal of having the big reveal . * Spoilers ahead * – The protagonist discovers that someone has been in her house when she was not there . Even if she makes a good guess of who the intruder might be , would it not be only natural that she should report it to the police or atleast let her family know that somebody know the pass-code to the family home ? Even if she is not keen on kicking up a ruckus , wouldn’t she atleast change the pass-code ? There were several such minor details which were overlooked to facilitate the FINAL BIG REVEAL . . . Unsurprisingly , all these loop-holes left me unimpressed with the story – telling even more . . .

A quick side note :

The missing child premise  brought to mind two other books which had dealt with it superbly . Jane Casey ‘ s debut , THE MISSING , traced the fracturing of the family when the tween son  goes missing and the subsequent descent of his mother into alcoholism who keeps the boy ‘ s room like a shrine ,  waiting and wanting only to know what happened to her son . While , the final reveal left me somewhat underwhelmed , it has excellent psychological profiling of the missing child ‘ s younger sister and  mother . .

Another is The Queen of Suspense ‘ s Daddy ‘ s Little Girl which had similar themes like THE MISSING . It dealt with the revisiting of the murder of a teenager by her younger sister ( who is an investigative journalist now ) when the convicted killer is up for parole  so that she could put the man whom she believes to be the killer behind bars once and for all  . While Mary H . Clark is not into too – much psychological profiling , she still gives her characters  enough traits & quirks to give the reader a good picture about their character  and tells one hell of a great story . . .

I would definitely recommend the above mentioned books over Little Secrets any day . . .

Rating : 3 . 5 / 5

If you have already read the book , let me know in the comments section about your thoughts on the book  . . . Until the next review then . .

Review : All The Missing Girls

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Author : Megan Miranda

Publication Date : October 2015

Publisher(s) : Simon & Schuster ( US )  &

Corvus ( UK )

When the suspense / detective fiction genres stayed simple , we had a crime or a string of crimes  , a detective and a good number of suspects . Sometimes these detectives came with their own sidekicks who will be the faithful chronicler / comic relief and sometimes bring his / her own accidental observations to the table which would help the sleuth to identify the perpetrator of the crime(s) . Then one sidekick proved that the detective needs to keep an eye on the person behind him too – one of the early books in the genre to feature an unreliable narrator . Then our crime fiction writers pounced upon it and now it has been done to death .

*Review starts here for the reader who can’t bother with my musings*

Once in a while , a writer is game enough to try something unusual in the way a story is told . And if the book becomes a bestseller , it would become yet another latest literary trope that several subsequent releases would implement . Megan Miranda has tackled an interesting narrative technique in her debut novel and has done it really well – the narrative traces the storyline in reverse : from Day 15 to Day 1 . Sounds interesting right ? ? I am waiting to see how this newest narrative technique picks up .

Here ‘ s brief summary of the story line –

Nicolette Farrell receives a letter from her father – ” I need to talk to you . That girl . I saw that girl ‘ . ‘ That girl ‘ is Corinne Prescott , her best friend who disappeared without a trace ten years ago . Nicolette left her hometown after Corinne ‘ s disappearance  and lives in Philadelphia . She returns home , concerned that her father ‘ s dementia has worsened or has he actually seen Corinne ? .

Then , another young lady disappears , almost to the day of the anniversary of when Corinne vanished . The townspeople relive Corinne ‘ s disappearance once again – searches are conducted ; everyone becomes a suspect . . . but there is no sign of the missing girl .

My thoughts on the book :

Nicolette is the narrator here and one can see what happens when the author goes with the first person narrative from a non –  sleuth character : The narrative has too much domestic drama rather than the sleuth action . I wouldn’t mind it if the story had a good pace though . . . Unfortunately , that was not the case here .

Nicolette ‘ s narrative comprises chiefly her teenage memories ( understandably ) –  the dynamics and the drama in the teenage friendships , relationship troubles and almost everything in between about her teenage years .  While Megan has played well with the plot points involving teenage psyche and even the psychological make – up of the characters in the present , Nicolette going on and on about her feelings then and now sometimes becomes too irritating . Then , there is the ” capture the moment ” writing where Nicolette points out every insignificant thing in the scene . While the hyper-realistic approach might work for the literary fiction / contemporary fiction genres , it slows down the pace and ( at-least for me ) it was really frustrating .  Only Megan’s pretty good writing kept me turning the pages .

A humble suggestion to the new crop of authors who feel a book must have 300 + pages to qualify as a book :

All this exposition of the characters’ psyche in addition to the real life drama is good only when the drama doesn’t become melodrama ( at-least by the standards of the suspense genre ) with detailed descriptions of what the character actually is feeling / might be feeling  .  Few genres like suspense could do very well without long – winded and flowery descriptions and metaphors coined by you .

After navigating through the torrent of drama in Nicolette ‘ s life , it is somewhat difficult to appreciate the really good ending . There were few scenarios where I also felt the characters did not react consistent with their characterization .One of my earlier reads also had the same problem of too much distracting stuff – coincidentally that too had a sighting of a girl who had been missing  for a long time .

Some suggestions to the new crop of crime fiction authors who feel a book must have 300 + pages to qualify as a book ( especially for newbie ‘ s who are right now banging away at their keyboards to write the next Gone Girl or the next Girl On The Train :

All this exposition of the characters’ psyche in addition to the real life drama is good only when the drama doesn’t become melodrama ( at-least by the standards of the suspense genre ) with detailed descriptions of what the character actually is feeling / might be feeling  .  Few genres like suspense could do very well without long – winded and flowery descriptions and metaphors coined by you . I would like to quote Stephen King here –

“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one in your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day…fifty the day after that…and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.” 

It has become sort of a trend nowadays for crime fiction writers to fill up the pages with too many details & preferences of the characters , I wonder why . . .

A final word –

Also this needs to be a one sitting read so that you don’t get confused by the reverse narrative . When you go for multiple sittings ( like I had to , unfortunately ) the reading experience won’t be very great . However , it is a superb storyline and for a debut author to experiment with the narrative technique and pulling it off successfully , it is really remarkable .

You can pick this book if you are ready to give it enough time . If you want a racy read , then this wouldn ‘ t be a good pick . If you have already read this book , how do you feel about this book ?

Is there something in the post you disagree with ? Feel free to write about it as well in the comments section . . .

Until the next review then . . .