THREE STARS
This is a dark and gritty mystery/thriller with a splash of romance. There is physical abuse, kidnapping, murder, drug use, abortion–yeah. There’s all of that and more things that might offend the tender-hearted. It was like going by a bad car accident. You know you shouldn’t look, but you can’t help yourself.
Sally is a prostitute and has escaped from her brothel, after the big shot there threatened to kill her. He meant it and went to extremes to hunt her down. When I think about it, I’m not sure why. She was 31-years-old, had been at this since she was 15 so she was worn out, didn’t harbor any house secrets. I don’t know why it was so imperative that he got her back. But it is what it is and it was the crux of the story. She drew in some really bad people to her new life and they had to be dealt with.
One thing I need to point out is that she was illiterate. She couldn’t read, write, or do math. That left her fair game to the thieves and they were opportunists. Kirk was working on teaching her math, but she really needed to learn to read too. Nobody tackled that. Knowledge is power and if she’d had those tools in her pocket, it would have been harder to take advantage of her, but not impossible.
Don’t go thinking that Kirk Watts was some sort of saint. He was far from that. As a matter of fact, I did not like him. He said he was insane. Everybody knew he was insane and gave him his space. I can understand mental illness and have sympathy for people who suffer from it, but that does not justify his excessive drug use or his actions while under the influence. The drug use and his actions were giant strikes against him. I could never trust anybody like that. It’s just a matter of time before he loses it and turns his attentions on her.
Sally was illiterate, but she was stupid too. Bad decision after bad decision and the way she gave Kirk everything was appalling. I get that she was broken. I get that Kirk was broken, but they both rode the line of being pathetic. I didn’t like either one of them.
There are some errors with the writing (reigns and reins have different meanings) and some awkward sentences that were distracting and took away from the reading experience and it isn’t a sin to use an occasional pronoun. Sally this. Sally that. Frankly, it grated on my nerves, especially when Kirk had her name on loop. He was often referred to as “the sandy haired man”. That was annoying too. For this being historical fiction, there were a lot of modern words used, which took away from the authenticity.
I read it to the end. I just didn’t care for it.
Hanging out with Kristi 