Jen’s review of Twisted by Laura K. Curtis
Lucy Sadler Caldwell is a successful true-crime writer. But the one story she’s never been able to come to terms with is the murder of her own mother–until now. She’s returned to Dobbs Hollow, Texas, the hometown she fled seventeen years ago, to finally expose the real killer.
After a bullet took out his knee in Houston, Detective Ethan Donovan found himself without a lot of options, which is how he ended up as Chief of Police in Dobbs Hollow. Lucy sure isn’t asking for his help–she’s not big on trust–but he can’t help feeling a strong desire to come to her aid.
And though Lucy is armed to the teeth, she will need all the help she can get. When she starts digging into the past, she unearths a psychotic killer who will stop at nothing to silence her forever.
In Twisted, true-crime author Lucy Sadler Caldwell returns to her hometown of Dobbs Hollow, Texas to try and dig into her mother’s murder, which happened when Lucy was just a child. Her mother was no saint, and consequently she had a terrible reputation in town, a reputation that was cruelly transferred to her daughter. Immediately, Lucy’s return stirs up curiosity and downright hostility from the townspeople, who’d much prefer she left the past in the past. She gets some help from the town’s Chief of Police Ethan Donovan, though. Ethan left the Houston police force under less-than-auspicious circumstances, but now he’s in Dobbs Hollow trying to navigate the complicated politics of this small, kind of crazy town. He and Lucy work together to figure out what really happened all those years ago and why there are more murders happening in the small town today.
The best word I can use to describe my experience with this book is…fine. Lucy and Ethan are ok main characters. They each have a sort of interesting backstory, though neither is what I would call particularly riveting. Their chemistry is also just…fine. In some ways I felt like they were drawn together primarily because of their outsider status in the small town, and while they did seem to move beyond that I wouldn’t call their attraction or romance terribly strong.
I liked that Lucy wasn’t out to prove that her mother was wrongly characterized by the town. Her mother made some questionable life choices and Lucy knows that, but she also knows that her mom did her best to protect her kids and didn’t deserve her fate. Lucy’s self-awareness helped me understand her more as a character, and she came across as strong and competent. I was less impressed with Ethan’s big secret, though mostly that is due to a personal bias against heroes with this particular issue.
The small town setting was vividly portrayed. Boy, those townspeople could be nasty to Lucy! They have secrets galore, and while I felt the secrets veered into melodramatic territory as the book went on, it was mostly believable that townspeople would hang on to their old prejudices and grudges for so long. I liked that not all the town residents were horrible, though. As Lucy and Ethan both prove themselves, they find sympathizers and people willing to look beyond the past.
Honestly, I feel like I have little to say about this book. I found parts of it enjoyable, and I didn’t feel an urge to stop reading it, but after it was over I found it hard to recall the details or work up any strong feelings about it. If you like romantic suspense that’s a bit light on the romance, you might enjoy this one.
Grade: 3 out of 5
This book is available from Intermix. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I started this one and got about 10 pages in before giving up. The heroine supposedly was going ‘undercover’ in the town, trying to keep her occupation a secret, and then was busted in the first few pages as she had her photo on the dust jackets of her books! With logic like that that had my eyes on auto roll I couldn’t continue!
The search for more great RS continues.