Oh my gosh - this is MUCH better than I thought it was going to be.

I love the depth of the characters. I love how they aren’t completely black-and-white and they continued to surprise me. I loved Nora and Iris and Wes and Lee so much! I cared about what happened to them. On the other side, the mother, step-father, and Wes’ father were characters I also cared what happened to them, but not in the same way.

The story kicks off strong and doesn’t take long for you to get completely invested. I don’t think I’ve read anything like this before, and I love it’s uniqueness.

I thought the writing was well done. The complexity of identity and relationships was explored and very well-put.

I’ll be looking into more of Tess Sharpe’s work because I want more.

Perhaps this series isn’t for me? I’m happy that we have some loose ends tied up, but I felt the pacing was too slow. For me, at least. I’m not sure exactly why, but I’m not quite satisfied with the ending. Everything is solved, things make sense, but I am still not content with the ending. Maybe I wanted more “a-ha” moments. I think because the reader figures out answers to the 1936 case before the main character does, it fell flat for me. I know that’s a tactic that some mystery writers use, but it just isn’t for me. I like being there with the MC, trying to solve the mystery with them, but I never felt on the same page as Stevie. In either the past mystery or the present mystery. The present mystery was kind of a let-down. I guess I wanted more, and I was not too happy with the solve. It felt a little rushed and quickly put together and not very realistic? That might just be me, though.

I also think David is a jerk and isn’t a healthy love interest. I didn’t find myself caring for the romance of the story.

I kind of want to read #4 to see what else is happening, but I’m worried I also will be disappointed.

I really hoped this one would be better, but I was kind of disappointed. I still don’t feel like the characters were 3 dimensional at all. They all seem to have the “1 thing” to be obsessed with and that’s there while personality.

As far as plot, I liked this one more than the previous three, but I feel like the “bad guys” are given too much credit. The way the murders happened as Stevie puts it seems too far fetched. People are dumb, and I can’t imagine they would go to such complex lengths to commit these crimes. It just didn’t seem believable to me.

That being said, I still found it entertaining to some degree abs appreciated some moments of writing.

The writing was good, but I wanted more answers from the plot. I’m still going to read the next book in the series because I’m invested.