Slipping Away

I received an advance reader copy of this book, so I’m assuming a few things will likely be corrected before the final publication.

Overall, I did enjoy the story. It has a good mystery at its core with a cute romance woven into it, which made for an engaging combination. The premise itself works well and the characters were interesting enough to keep me invested in seeing how everything would unfold.

That said, there were a couple of things that made the reading experience a bit frustrating. The story uses multiple points of view, which I understand is meant to show different perspectives of the same events. However, several scenes were repeated almost word-for-word across those POVs. Instead of adding new insight, it often felt like reading the same moment again, which slowed the pacing.

The other issue was what appeared to be a fairly significant editing error just before the halfway point. Up until then, the killer’s dialogue is written in a way that keeps their identity hidden, using phrases like “a voice said” or similar descriptions. But in one scene where the killer is taunting Sara, the dialogue tag suddenly lists the character’s actual name. Because of that, the identity of the killer is revealed outright rather than discovered through the unfolding investigation. After that moment, the later sections involving suspect questioning lose some of their tension because the answer has essentially already been given.

Since this is an ARC, I’m hopeful that will be corrected before publication, because the overall story has a lot of potential and works well when the mystery is allowed to develop naturally.