this review is for a book i read during LAST year's challenge but never got around to writing and posting the full review.
Performed by Alyson Silverman
Harlequin Enterprises/MIRA Books/Audible
Romantic Suspense
Unabridged Audio Book
Rating: 2
New Orleans homicide detective Guy Gautreaux is called back from a leave of absence after his last case to investigate a murder in Toussaint. This particular case doesn’t seem all that unusual enough to bring him back, but the more he investigates, the deeper he realizes the trail leads.
Jilly Gable owns bakery where the latest murder has occurred and she needs answers. In the midst of the investigation, Jilly is trying to strengthen her family ties and reunite with the mother her abandoned her as a child. But when a “shaving accident” nearly kills her mother, things in Toussaint grow even stranger.
Jilly and Guy must work together to stay safe and get to the bottom of the mystery but the newly developing relationship between them adds even more danger to Jilly’s life.
I had such a hard time even finishing A Grave Mistake. I’ve come to the conclusion that Stella Cameron’s writing style just isn’t for me. It certainly doesn’t help that I was so confused throughout the entire novel I didn’t have a clue what was happening with which characters in the various interwoven storylines. I was wandering aimlessly through the mystery until suddenly in the last few chapters everything falls perfectly into place… too perfectly if you ask me. Then there is the added problem that a couple of the characters I could never remember which was which! They just weren’t unique enough individuals for me and I kept blurring who was who.
I also had a very hard time buying into the reality of some of what unfolded. The biggest issue I had here was with Edith Preston’s (Jilly’s mother) accident. An attempted murder gone awry left her passed out drunk on a bed with razors sticking out of her arms. (No this isn’t a spoiler since it happens almost immediately in the book.) How the attempted murder is passed off to the town? As a shaving accident so people wouldn’t think it was a suicide attempt. Come on now, give me a break! The exact circumstances in which she is found are ridiculous to the extreme that someone would believe she was shaving her legs and her hand slipped. This just started me into this story with such an air of disbelief that here is where my ability to get engrossed in the novel vanished.
To be honest there is only one redeeming feature of the entire book for me. There is a very poignant storyline involving the local priest and his housekeeper that brought tears to my eyes over the beauty of the emotions surrounding them. Their story is so heartbreakingly tender and bittersweet. This plotline is the only reason this book was not an utter wall banger for me. I found myself continuing A Grave Mistake to find out how their story would resolve itself far more than for our fearless lead couple Jilly and Guy.
Unfortunately, Alyson Silverman, in my opinion, was not the right choice for a narrator for A Grave Mistake. This is a dark thriller of a story and her voice is too young and soft to really portray the right mood with her performance. Don’t get me wrong, Silverman is a very good narrator and I have enjoyed her voice on other audio books. Her voice just seems more suited to lighter works than this book is.
© Kelley A. Hartsell, February 2008. All rights reserved.
