Happy New Year, everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful time with their family and friends – and their books, of course! I spent my break with my family and my AMAZING cousin helped me make a TON of changes to my blog (as you can see) so I hope you all like the new look!
I wanted to start my first blog post of the new year with something I’ve been meaning to read for a long time but have been putting off. I had read Karin Slaughter’s Pretty Girls and really enjoyed it. It made me want to read more by this author, so I chose this one on a whim. Now, I know this book is part of a series that I haven’t read but may people had told me that it wasn’t necessary to read the books in order so I went ahead with The Kept Woman. Here is my review:
When a murder is discovered at an abandoned construction site, Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is brought in. However, the case quickly becomes more dangerous when the dead man is identified as an ex-cop. When Sara Linton – GBI’s medical examiner and Will’s lover – studies the body, she discovers that the blood loss doesn’t belong to the corpse. Sure enough, bloody footprints leading away from the scene indicate there is another victim—a woman—who has vanished . . . and who will die soon if she isn’t found. To make matters worse, the site of the murder belongs to the city’s most popular citizen: a powerful and politically connected athlete who is protected by the best lawyers money can buy. But the worst is yet to come. Evidence soon links Will’s troubled past to the case . . . and the consequences will tear through his life with the force of a tornado, wreaking havoc for Will and everyone around him.
I want to start off by talking about the positive things about this novel:
Even though this novel is part of the Will Trent series, I had no problems following along. The author provided more than enough details for the reader to understand the different connections between people. I also really liked that the author took the time to describe the backstories of the different characters and allowed us to see how they interacted with each other and formed their relationships; it allowed me to connect better with the story and understand the motivations behind their actions. I think my favorite character, weirdly enough, was Angie, Will’s ex-wife. She was not a good person in any way but I liked that she was flawed and that she was capable of having good intentions, even though most people were not willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. There is a love triangle in this story, but I didn’t mind it; surprisingly enough, it made the story more realistic (even though the extent of Angie’s behaviour was really absurd).
Now, onto the things I didn’t like:
This story has the weirdest timeline. We start off with the crime, then we jump to the future where the investigation is happening, and then we go back into the past to the events that led to the crime. Normally, I like when the timeline isn’t just in one direction but it made the story overly complicated and confusing here. I also thought that the novel lacked focus. There were too many avenues being pursued in an effort to add twists to the story. There’s one angle involving drugs and prostitution, another involving domestic abuse, and another involving Angie being a crazy psycho. I wish the author had just pursued one because it made the novel feel like it was all over the place, and it made the tangents feel like they had no real reason to be connected at all. I was also really bothered by certain things in the story that just didn’t make any sense. I mean, why are all the athlete’s wives crazy and violent? Why are all the athletes into rape? Why is it okay for male cops to harass their female colleagues? It just didn’t work for me.
So while I enjoyed Pretty Girls, The Kept Woman was not my style at all. I think I’m going to stick to standalone books by this author. For now, I’m giving this novel a 2.5/5 stars.
Happy reading ~