Cold Betrayal

by A J McCarthy

[moraa]

TL;DR I’m not quite certain where to start with this book, there’s just too much to say. I liked it at first and everything seemed to be going well in the beginning stages. McCarthy definitely kept us guessing about Tori’s background and the mysterious stranger she found on in the cabin but all this faded too fast, and I don’t mean with the reveal about Danny and their no doubt complicated relationship.
In no particular order, I’m going to talk about what made me choose to DNF this book and I’m going to attempt to list some things the author could have done better. Disclaimer: I have only made it through a third of this book and consequently I will only be reviewing the portion I read.
The mystery surrounding Ben was a nice touch as I said before but there were instances when it seemed as though the author brought out an element of toxic masculinity in an effort to enhance that mystery. In one instance, he throws Tori over his shoulder and carries her back to his cabin. I didn’t understand the need for this, I mean she was freezing and unable to walk but perhaps he could have asked first? My issue with this is that characters that often do this in books are portrayed as alpha males and it’s harmful stereotype to portray to readers.
He also speaks to Tori in a way that “leaves no room for disagreement” which to me is nothing short of ridiculous because he has no power over her and shouldn’t be able to dictate what she does simply because she’s staying in his cabin. If she wants to do something as simple as taking a cab to the motel she’ll be staying at then there’s no need for Ben to get territorial and insist on driving her. If she said no she said no, simple as that.
And while we’re on the subject of Ben I may as well add that the reveal of his name took too long for my liking. We had to endure Tori referring to him as “the man” for an entire chapter, which may not seem like much but it was a long chapter and she had quite a bit of interaction with him. This is not like ‘s/he said’ which most writers say readers ignore, no. It grated on my eyes to have to constantly read ‘the man said’ ‘the man did this and that’ ‘the man looked there’. It was nothing short of irritating.
Onto Tori now. A little too naïve for my taste. This was especially obvious during her internal monologue about how Danny “would never have ordered anyone to kill her”. This one statement makes it apparent that Danny would in fact do something like that especially since we later learn he’s some sort of drug lord. All this leaves us wondering if Tori was too crazy in love to see the truth for what it was or just plain old stupid.
Another issue was the platonic-at-first-but-progressively-non-platonic relationship Tori had with all the male characters we were introduced to: Ben, Mario and of course Danny whom she’d been in a relationship with off-screen. When her feelings for Ben began to sprout I was ready for the author to dive a little deeper into his character and I may have been expecting some pay-off regarding his mysterious past but instead we jumped to Mario who Tori also began to have feelings for and later kissed and seemed to like very much.
I’d also like to mention that Mario’s territorial behaviour over her (all due to one kiss) is a disappointing trend I’m seeing in today’s authors. I don’t understand why the general perception of strong men in literature must entail immediate and unconditional obedience from their love interests or other (mainly) women around them. How does this equate to power or higher status? Why do writers keep expecting it to do exactly this in the readers’ minds?
The speed with which Tori trusts strangers is also alarming. She mentions on several occasions that Ben “didn’t appear threatening to her” and something to the effect that Mario “was a trustworthy man” which I find ludicrous because she barely knows these people and the fact that she’s living with a complete stranger (Chantal, Mario’s sister) just did it for me. It was all to unrealistic for me to continue.
The writing definitely could have been better. The word ‘dazedly’ was used a lot of times and some sentences could have done with some shortening and word-substitution.
Otherwise, it wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever read but it certainly wasn’t the worst either. I look forward to seeing something a little more polished next time!