Thank you to TLC book tours for the gifted copy

A billionaire widow in a small Midwest town announces a lottery: give your DNA for a chance to win multimillion dollars. Is it a purely philanthropic gesture, or is it connected to something more sinister? At the heart of the controversy are three women: a divorced single mom returning to her hometown for a strange job, a controversial state senator running for reelection, and a divorce attorney coping with her own crumbling marriage and overbearing mother.

While there is a "DNA lottery," there isn't much, if any, science jargon in the story. Readers worried about this novel turning into science fiction can be rest assured. I enjoyed reading a faster-paced mystery/thriller between all the award longlist readings. As such, FORTUNE provided an entertaining experience.

However, the story has many moving pieces, and I feel the uneven pacing didn't do justice to the cleverly designed twists and turns. The story slugged quite a bit in the middle and didn't really pick up until the last 20%. Furthermore, the final 10 pages revealed so much without tying up all the loose ends, leaving me wanting more closure.

Overall, FORTUNE is a solid debut with some ingenious ideas. It failed to live up to its full potential, perhaps due to the lack of editing and too many storylines