This book was a wild ride. There is so much I would love to discuss in this review that's just plain spoilers so I can't get to the most absurd stuff, but man. If this is what romantic suspense is like as a genre, I need to start reading more of it. I didn't like the book or think it was good, but it's certainly not one I will be forgetting anytime soon. I consume a lot of media and a lot of books, and honestly I'd rather have a memorable two star than a forgettable three star.

Let's start with the boring negatives. First, this book was very long. Like incredibly long. It went on forever. It took me over a week to read and ordinarily I get through books in 2-3 days, especially books that capture my attention. This just seemed never ending. The ebook I read was over 900 pages which I think translates to about 450 in a regular book, but even then, it felt longer. There really wasn't any need for it to be so long and I feel like I'd have enjoyed it more had it lost 100 pages or even more.

It also took a long time for me to get into it. I was bored throughout the first half of the book. Bored and confused. There were a lot of different characters and convoluted relationships and multiple people who seemed unnecessarily similar. It took me a a few scenes to figure out that the cop investigating the murder and the man looking into his wife's disappearance weren't the same person. I also don't think characters were introduced well. I ordinarily don't have such a hard time following books, but I really didn't know what was happening in the first half. This is the first in a series, but it honestly felt like she was bringing back characters I was already meant to be familiar with.

Now let's get into the romance because oh boy. I like to go into books blind so I didn't know anything about this one except that it was romantic suspense and the first in a series (I own the second, borrowed this from the library). However, I happened across a line from a review that said they took issue with the main romantic relationship because it was inappropriate. So I was prepared. The main character is introduced pretty quick, Caitlin Montgomery Bandeaux, a grieving mother with mental health issues, a lot of family drama, and a recently murdered estranged husband. Okay, cool. Then the hunky lead cop investigating her husband's murder is introduced, and I'm thinking to myself, okay I can see where that would be inappropriate. They flirt a bit, they obviously have some bit of attraction, the cop is overly interested in her body and her as a person, etc.

Then a therapist shows up out of the blue, lies to Caitlin in order to become her therapist, uses her sessions for his own personal gain, manipulates her, and they fall in love. He's literally the ex husband of her former therapist, and is looking into his ex wife's disappearance. I want to have words to express how incredibly wrong that whole situation is, but I really don't. So we'll just leave it there.

This book also relies on a trope I really hate, which is that everything happens because of mental illness. What is that character's motivation? Mental illness. Why wasn't this brought up before? Mental illness. Why did the murderer- mental illness. It wasn't just one instance or one character, but several. And it was tied to pretty much all of the climactic moments. I'm also not one hundred percent positive because I'm not personally familiar with the one diagnosed mental illness (which is a spoiler so I won't name), but judging based on other representation discussed in media, it was very cliche and poorly done.

This book was also predictable. I called the big plot twist from very early on and I'm not sure many people would have missed it. Like I said above, it was very predictable and cliche. The only part of the ending I didn't guess was an element I feel like wasn't foreshadowed at all. Usually when a book fools me, I can look back and pick up on some clues that I missed that seem so obvious in hindsight, but in this book there wasn't anything. It didn't make sense for the context and honestly felt like it hadn't been thought through all the way. The only justification for it was mental illness, which apparently is the only motivation any of these characters know.

Now this is a romance novel, so it's obviously got to have a happy ending. It's not a spoiler, just a requirement of the genre. If there's not a happily ever after, you're reading a novel with romance and not the romance genre. Both are fine by me, but I want the ending to be earned. This ending was one of those magical happy endings where it doesn't make sense that everything has been solved. Some of the problems were things that couldn't be solved. I was honestly super interested in the last third because I wanted to see how creative she would get because I literally couldn't think of a plausible way to have that happy ending. It was disappointing to me that it felt tacked on and lazy.

But I dunno. All that negativity, but most of it was about the story. A different story, some different characters, maybe I would really enjoy a Lisa Jackson book. I have a couple on my shelf (including the sequel which is more of a companion than a straight sequel) and I'm actually pretty eager to get to them.

This book was fun, at least in the final half/third. It was absolutely absurd and over the top. I wasn't enjoying this for how good it was, but how ridiculous. This was a wild ride. Not entirely pleasant all the way through, but I do quite like being constantly floored by all the ridiculous elements thrown at me. I was excited to see where on earth she would go next. It's maybe not the best attribute in a book, but it's enough for me.

So was it good? No. Will I read Lisa Jackson again? Definitely. I do think maybe some of her other books will be better, but if they're anything like this I'll at least have an unforgettable time reading them.

In case you're interested in some of the more wild tidbits and don't mind spoilers because you won't be reading this:

Spoiler

At one point, the main character is in the middle of having sex with her therapist (who she's still paying to be her therapist, mind you) when she switches into her dead twin's persona. At the same time, her sister is murdering their illegitimate half sisters who are also their cousins (incest is fun) with spiders and sugar, because their names are Cricket and Sugar. Duh. The Sugar sister/cousin is also having an affair with the murdery sister's husband. Which was kind of teased the whole book and then thrown in real quick at the end like Jackson forgot to write a climax for it. There's a lot more, but I don't have time to write a review as long as this book.