Tuesday, August 19, 2014

One of Us by Tawni O'Dell

3 Stars
 
Noted forensic psychologist Dr. Sheridan Doyle (Danny to his family) has been called back to his home town in order to check on his aging grandfather. He never planned on discovering a dead body at the legendary (and reportedly haunted) gallows where a group of miners were hung generations ago. He never could have imagined getting involved in solving the mystery of this death, or that he would have to revisit his own ghosts before he can get back to the life he has created for himself in order to escape the past.

Long, long, ago in a kingdom far, far, away there lived a young girl who read everything a certain celebrity told her to read.



Yes, Liz Lemon, I am indeed talking about the Queen of All Things. Oprah led me to a little tale called Back Roads by Tawni O’Dell that completely mesmerized me. I had forgotten all about Ms. O’Dell, but when One of Us popped up on NetGalley I knew I needed to request it immediately . . . and after reading it, I’m left feeling kind of “meh”. I hate that!

There’s nothing blatantly wrong with this story. In fact there are a lot of things that most people will find good: – good, solid characters in Rafe and Tommy; a good potential killer on the loose; a good crazy momma backstory – plenty of good stuff.

Unfortunately, for me at least, there were some bad things to go along with the good – bad “mystery” (as I knew what was going on the entire book); bad, shallow characters in Danny and Scarlet (and not in the shallow way they are always namedropping which designers they are wearing at any given time – I thought that served a purpose); bad that there were no unexpected twists and turns.

Maybe it’s because I read a pretty remarkable mystery/thriller right before reading this one, or maybe it’s because the “mystery” moniker was applied incorrectly in this case and this should have just been categorized as something simple like “book club” . . .



Calm down, Liz.

Whatever the case may be, this ended up being just “okay” for me. Have no fears, though, I (much like my friend Elizabeth Miervaldis Lemon) still remain faithful to the Church of Oprah.



My apologies for any typos or grammatical errors that may have been missed. The inspiration for this review came from a previously forgotten, but delicious once discovered, bottle of Shiraz.



ARC provided by NetGalley. Thank you, NetGalley!

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