Sunday, May 12, 2019

SAY YOU’RE SORRY by Karen Rose







Publisher:      Berkley
Published:      February 12, 2019
ISBN:      978-0399586729
Genre:    Romantic Suspense
Format:     Print from Publisher
Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina  myreviewbooks@aol.com

FOUR HEARTS
 

Three emotionally and physically damaged people.  Each struggling for their own survival in their own way.  While Gideon and Daisy have people around them, “Sonny” is on his own.  Their early stories are similar—their choices as adults couldn’t be further apart.

As a child Daisy’s overprotective father, Frederick, took her and her sisters from their home – desperate to keep them safe from an unknown assailant.  Complicating his life is that he suffers from PTSD after being held prisoner years before.  Frederick comes from a place of love yet that love has stifled his children, leading Daisy down the path to alcoholism.

Gideon grew up in an abusive cult where young girls were married at 12 and boys tattooed at 13.  After witnesses a particularly heart wrenching episode of abuse his mother helped him escape.  He has never stopped looking for the rest of his family—hoping against hope that they too escaped.

“Sonny” was “made” by a sick and sadistic woman.  Unlike Gideon and Daisy he had no one to stand by him, to protect or guide him out of his darkness.  When “Sonny” attacks Daisy he sets in motion a manhunt that leads not only to one of the most vile serial killers, but to the roots of Gideon and Daisy’s personal nightmares.

I had a hard time reading about three such emotionally injured characters.  In a “normal” read at least one would have some stability to their life.  Not so in their case.  Oh, they have stable moments, but their pasts are always lurking.  Fortunately they have characters around them, which translates into characters around us, who are stable and emotionally together.  Absent those characters I don’t think I could have finished the book because Gideon, Daisy and even “Sonny’s” stories, once we know what drove him, were just too depressing.  It takes a long time for their inner strength to truly come through, but when it does, Rose does it with flair. 

I was drawn to the book because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and know Sacramento well.  Admittedly I wanted to see if she got the area right.  Not a lot of words went to Sacramento, but the outlying areas where Daisy and Gideon travelled are well described.  While venues aren’t necessarily key to a story, they add flavour and in the case of SAY YOU’RE SORRY, particularly at the end, a good description adds to the tension of the story. 

One of the aspects of serial killer books I really enjoy are reading the psychological aspects of their actions.  I anticipated that since Gideon is an FBI agent there would have been some solid profiling going on, but it didn’t really come up.  For me that was a missed opportunity.  Lack of it didn’t detract from the story – it just would have added to it.  I definitely plan to continue the series.



This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.

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