Suspicion

by Alexandra Monir

[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

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I'm honestly not sure where to even start with this review.

Should I talk about the first 80% of the book, which was sort of a mash-up of Princess Diaries and a paranormal-tinged murder mystery - neither of which was that great? Or should I just skip to the end, and tell you how the last 20% (most emphatically, the last 10%) ruined any potential this book had of getting even a 2-3 star review, which I had been considering because the beginning wasn't awful?

Honestly, I'm tempted to just skip to the end, because it was the end that made me realize that I could never in good conscience recommend this book to anyone.

It's true that the writing in the beginning is pretty good. It's totally readable, often quite pretty, and does a good job of setting the stage for a very Princess-Diaries-esque, modern-day, "lost heir inherits beautiful foreign estate and becomes a duchess" story. Things are complicated and made more dramatic by the fact that our duchess, Imogen, lost her parents in a fire at the estate when she was 7, and her cousin who was supposed to inherit may have actually died under mysterious circumstances, not the accident that everyone believes.

I was on board for this story for about the first 40% or so. Then I started to get suspicious. Wasn't there supposed to be some romance? Where was that? Then, at 66%, I went back to Goodreads to double-check the blurb. Yep, there it was: "a spine-tingling mystery and powerful romance". Well, that hadn't happened yet. Also, where was the "action-packed thrill ride" I was promised?

And then the last 20% of the book happened. And I questioned my decision to ever start reading it in the first place.

It's gonna be hard to talk about the ending without giving away major spoilers, but I'll try to be vague. The characters say and do things that are completely ridiculous, and which made me re-think my prior belief that they had any common sense whatsoever. Imogen was an okay character! I didn't find her particularly interesting or terribly compelling, and it's true that her growth throughout the book was mostly just told and not shown. But I thought she had a good head on her shoulders! Apparently not.

Also, the "resolution" to the mystery was so. Completely. Unbelievable. And I mean "unbelievable" in the sense that I cannot explain to you the amount of suspension-of-disbelief it would take to believe some of the revelations at the end of this book. I just... I cannot explain. One of the blurbs in the Goodreads' description, from another author, is "an ending that you definitely won't suspect" — yes! Because it makes NO SENSE! It was so bad that, at 94%, I actually seriously considered DNFing this book, I was so done.

 
In conclusion...

I wish I'd followed my gut when I sort of considered skipping this book altogether, based on the fact that I'd heard from a couple people that the end was a bit "WTF". Yeah... just a bit. Just a teeeeeny tiny bit. -_- The Princess Diaries storyline lacked sparkle and life; the murder mystery lacked suspense; the paranormal elements were wayyyyy under-developed and seemed kind of thrown in there for the heck of it; the romance was so lacking in actual chemistry (and, again, believability) that it lent no redeeming qualities to this book whatsoever. And I will forgive a lot if there's a good ship.

I just... no. This book. No. And the end leaves it open for a sequel and I just... No.

This book gets an extra half-star for being okay in the beginning, and because I'm feeling generous. But that's it.

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There were books involved...