Roberta Bozga

Thank you to the author for providing a review copy.

This book started off really strong. I honestly thought it was going to be a great debut. But for me, repetition is a major issue. And I’m not talking about a repeated phrase here and there or something that comes up over a chapter or two. I felt like I was reading the same things over and over again throughout the entire book. Eventually, I got bored and found myself counting down the pages until I reached the end.

Another thing that bothered me was not knowing from the start that this is part of a series. I would have appreciated that being made clear from the beginning.

I also struggled with the frequent use of asterisks between scenes. They appeared so often that they became distracting. In many cases, the story flowed naturally without any obvious change in time, location, or perspective, so I couldn’t really see the purpose of those scene breaks. Instead of helping the pacing, they pulled me out of the story and, after a while, started to feel like something that constantly caught my eye for no reason.

The story follows Alora/Myla, who returns to CedarWood after sixteen years following her mother’s death. She has to deal with the funeral, the family home, and the animals left behind. But returning home also brings back memories she didn’t even realize she had. After a powerful storm, the body of a thirteen-year-old girl who disappeared twenty-six years earlier is discovered not far from her property.

The big question is: what connection does Alora have to this disappearance? Honestly, even after finishing the book, I didn’t feel like I received a clear or satisfying answer. The entire mystery left me with the impression that too much of the story existed to fill pages rather than build toward a strong resolution.

I don’t think this is a bad book. The premise is interesting, and there are elements that work well. However, for me, the execution never lived up to the potential of the idea.

I never DNF books and always try to finish them, even when I’m not connecting with the story. But if I were the type of reader who gives up on books, this would unfortunately have been a DNF for me.