This is my first Paula McLain novel and right when I finished, I started googling her other novels to purchase more.

*** That being said ****

This novel didn’t knock words out of the park for me. It wasn’t amazing. It kinda dragged. The ending that I read this (relatively) long book for left be slightly disappointed. The main character’s event that caused her to head back to her home town [NO SPOILER] is finally revealed at the end and as a reader, I’m like … WAIT – she was off solving crime when something like that was hanging over her head? Her husband kicked her out, when something like that was hanging over her head? It wasn’t realistic to me. I was thinking something totally different than what ACTUALLY happened because the ‘event’ was too big of a thing. (Hard to talk about without talking about it, but if you know, you know.)

 Yet – I stopped my life to make sure I could get to the ending. When I reached the ‘point of no return’, I enjoyed getting there. It was a nice slow burn. It was littered with clues. We had multiple ‘mysteries’ to solve. It had some lovely references to real life girls missing. 
     To summarize, it wasn’t a magical story. It’s not going to stick with me. I didn’t hate or regret that I read it but I still didn’t think, ‘lovely’ when I was done. 
     I did recognize that McLain is a very talented writer. That much was very, very clear. I think I read in the author’s note that this was her first stab at a mystery/thriller? If so, awesome. I hope she take a lot of the feedback and makes another. She’s right there on the edge of making something magical in the thriller/suspense world.
     A solid 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. 
    I would recommend this book as the author is clearly talented. Enjoy!