Hooo, this was a hot mess. The idea of the library was great, but the execution failed. I feel this book’s existence is a symptom of the pressure on genre authors to publish a book a year. It might have been good if given more time to cook. She had a good story in her first book, and now this one is entirely made up of thriller and mystery cliches, all to the tune of overblown figurative language that makes no sense and does not belong in a mystery book. Very little substance, lots of melodramatic language.
Some examples:
“A memory flickers in a blink, pebbling my arms in goose bumps: Evangeline’s skin-covered finger bones guiding a pen over a notebook page” — just say “fingers”!!!!
“The lights go out, and beneath our feet, the elevator drops to our screams” — there has to be a better way to phrase this. Also, this is how most of the chapters end like this, on a cheap cliffhanger.
“My entrails cinch together” — this is not a thing
“The name inches a little deeper through my chest, and I flick it off like a spider.” — anytime an author starts talking about things in the chest you know you’re in trouble, it’s an image authors without much to say often come back to
“Something bit at my core.” — Just let the story speak for itself! we don’t need physical reactions from POV characters, we can figure it out on our own
“But the rage that had pupated inside me for so long metamorphosed into grief when I walked through the hall of death masks.” — sigh
I’m not saying goodbye to this author, but I certainly won’t be paying full price for one of her books again until she has more books under her belt, and after I’ve read it first from the library.
Also, authors: resist the impulse to have multiple narrators unless you can differentiate voice, and your plot is under control. And please note the first person present tense narrative here. Always a mistake when your craft isn’t working.
