This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.
My Review:Title: Dead Set
Author: Melissa Pearl, Anna Cruise
Series: Aspen Falls #2
Published by: Indie
Release Date: April 14th 2018
Format: eARC
Pages: 263
Genres: Romantic Suspense, Mystery
Source: the author
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2018 #LetsReadIndie Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 New Release Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ IndieBound
My rating:
Blurb:
Her brother is dead. And she’s determined to find out why…
Alaina’s brother would never commit suicide. But the police have already closed the case. So who can Alaina turn to for help?
Aspen Falls’s only private eye.
Lucas isn’t convinced there’s much of a case. But he needs the money, and he’s not about to turn down a beautiful woman.
But has he underestimated the investigation?
Threats, both real and imagined, materialize and Lucas must decide just how far he’s willing to go…for the truth, and for the woman he thinks he’s falling in love with.
You’ll love Dead Set, because of its strong, relatable characters, simmering romance and a mystery that has you guessing until the end.
Get it now and escape to the small town of Aspen Falls today.
*****
Every Aspen Falls Novel can be read as a stand-alone book...
Other Aspen Falls Novels: Dead of Winter
I received a free copy through the author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.
3 stars — This one was more light on the romance, focused more heavily on the plot and mystery surrounding Alaina’s brother’s death. I was enjoying the mystery for the first half, but unfortunately I kept wondering about certain things, and I couldn’t get out of my own head. I was still fully entrenched in my slump when I read it.
Unlike many co-written novels, this is more of a co-written series. You can notice a stylistic difference in the writing. This author employs a lot of description, which can be nice to really get the reader entrenched in the setting. Unfortunately, my personal preference tends to lean away from too much description. I think she did it well, I just get bored with details, my bread and butter for liking books is more about characters.
And in the end I wasn’t completely sold on either character. I didn’t really get a super great sense of who they were…I got more of a sense of Alaina, but I really didn’t always understand her or empathize with her struggle. There were DEFINITELY moments where I was emotionally invested, so it wasn’t all the time. But I guess I just couldn’t get a good grasp on how she came to be who she was. That could be a me failing though, not sure.
Lucas was a bit of a mystery. I felt his sadness about being off the force, but we really didn’t delve into his psyche much, you know? And his friendship with Blaine was a bit different than what I had expected from book one, so that threw me off too.
I really enjoyed the first part of the mystery, and trying to figure out what happened to Noah. But somewhere along the way I lost patience in all the things they weren’t doing, in all the ways the characters were behaving that were antithetical to solving the mystery, and there was a certain point where it became super obvious when one character was involved, and it wasn’t noticed. Alaina not telling Lucas everything, keeping him at arms length was frustrating. And there were other things that happened that felt like plot devices, and that was it (namely Mariah Coates).
I don’t know. See? I’m just in a shitty mood, and so things are bugging more than they might otherwise. I mean, this probably wasn’t ever going to be a favourite, but I seem to get sucked into the things I disliked more than I should.
The romantic suspense ones are always hit or miss for me.