About the Book
Author: JPC Allen
Genre: YA cozy mystery
Release date: March 1, 2024
Her dad said nothing could hurt their relationship. But what if he isn’t her dad?
Summer gets off to a rocky start for twenty-year-old Rae Riley when the ex-wife of family friend Jason Carlisle claims their youngest child isn’t his and Rae’s con man uncle Troy returns to Marlin County, Ohio. Rae is already at odds with her father, Sheriff Walter “Mal” Malinowski, over her desire to help people in trouble. When she extends that help to Troy and Jason’s ex-wife, Ashley, she and Mal clash even more.
Then Ashley disappears, and Jason and his brother Rick are the main suspects. As Rae and her aunt Carrie, a private investigator hired to protect Jason’s kids, work to discover what really happened to Ashley, Rae wrestles with Troy’s insinuations that she may be calling the wrong Malinowski “Dad.”
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My Review
This novel for youth has a suspenseful last half but gets off to a slow start. Allen immerses readers in a community of extended family relationships, many of which are troubling. Some people have various step-siblings. Adults have had relationships so that a child's parentage is in question. It is a world very unlike my own and may be a trigger situation to some young readers.
The plot does not take shape until about half way through the book when something of significance happens. The first half of the book is extended family drama, some hating other family members or claiming they are dangerous. There are many bitter or caustic verbal interactions, perhaps trigger situations for young readers who have had troubling childhoods. There are many characters to keep straight. Family tree charts are provided at the beginning of the book but understanding all the relationships may require reading the first novel in this series.
Rae is a twenty year old heroine. She faces the dilemma of trying to obey the command to love her enemies without being deceived by people playing her. She sometimes disobeys her father's restrictions designed to keep her safe. Rae is a good example of the good and bad aspects of a young person trying to help solve a murder mystery.
This is a good novel for young readers with healthy family relationships. Others may encounter a variety of trigger situations.
My rating: 4/5 stars.
About the Author
More form JPC
Readers Deserve a Reward
I may be unusual, or just plain weird, but thinking of my ending first is the common way I approach a new story. It seems to help me to know my destination before I set out on the adventure of writing a story. I can take any number of routes to reach my destination and wandering around and exploring detours is a lot of the fun of writing. But by keeping my destination in mind, I don’t get lost. Or at least, not easily.
The other thing I keep in mind about my ending is that it’s a reward for the reader. I’m relatively new to publishing and not well known. So when readers take a chance on one of my stories, I believe it’s my job to reward their risk with an atypical, satisfying ending. Now I do work hard to make the whole story satisfying with things like an attention-grabbing opening and tension-building scenes. But endings, I think, are special to readers. This is the part that lingers in their minds when they close the book–whether it’s a sense of satisfaction, like the pleased feeling you have after a delicious meal, or anger or exasperation because the ending let them down.
I work to make all parts of the ending satisfying–the climax, denouement or wrap-up, and the last lines. For the climax, readers of my mysteries deserve more thant just the good guys solving the puzzle and catching the bad guy. I plan an action-packed, suspenseful climax that has readers living the final confrontation with the main character and it resolves itself in a way that, I hope, surprises readers.
Denouements are so critical to mysteries, when the detective explains how he solved the case. But they can also be deadly dull because the explanation needs to be thorough to meet the expectations of mystery fans. So in A Storm of Doubts, I split up the explanation–a lot of it is revealed during the climax, so I don’t bore readers by piling up a discussion of the solution in one chapter.
The final scene and last lines are areas I spend a good deal of thought on. Even if this scene was my inspiration for the entire story, how it plays in my head and how it plays on the page are two very different things. I also think the last scene and lines have a certain rhythm to them, like the final bars of a song. My job is make the scene round off the story without staying too long in it.
So when you read A Storm of Doubts, I’d love to know what you think of the ending. Because you do deserve a reward.
Blog Stops
Stories By Gina, May 4 (Author Interview)
Book Reviews From an Avid Reader, May 5
Artistic Nobody, May 6 (Author Interview)
Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, May 7
Jodie Wolfe – Stories Where Hope and Quirky Meet, May 8 (Author Interview)
The Lofty Pages, May 8
Beauty in the Binding, May 9 (Author Interview)
Library Lady’s Kid Lit, May 10
Guild Master, May 11 (Author Interview)
Locks, Hooks and Books, May 12
A Reader’s Brain , May 13 (Author Interview)
For Him and My Family, May 13
Texas Book-aholic, May 14
For the Love of Literature, May 15 (Author Interview)
Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, May 16
Vicky Sluiter, May 17 (Author Interview)
(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)
4 comments:
Sounds like an interesting mystery! Thanks for posting this!
Looks very good.
Marilyn
Thank you so much for the review and hosting a blog stop on my tour!
Sounds like a good read. Thanks for sharing.
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