SAY NO MORE by Karen Rose

 

Publisher:      Penguin
Published:      August 22, 2020
ISBN:      ‎ 978-1984805300
Genre:     Suspense, Women’s Fiction
Format:     Ebook from Publisher
Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina  myreviewbooks@aol.com

TWO HEARTS                                                             

After escaping the Eden cult as a child and more recently a serial killer Mercy Callahan has settled in New Orleans with her extended family. She’s made friends and built a life for herself but has pleasant memories of the man who risked his life to save her from the serial killer, Rafe Sokolov. There is also unfinished business with her brother, Gideon, who escaped Eden years before. There are things she kept from him, like their step siblings, and then some but the time has come to open those doors to Gideon. Along with her friend, Farrah, they leave for Sacramento.  Upon their arrival Mercy’s world once again begins to crumble when one of the men from Eden, her husband, is there to meet her. But this is not a reunion she wants. In fact, it is more her worst nightmare.

Disappointing. Sadly disappointing.  I loved the first book in Karen Rose’s Sacramento series, SAY YOUR SORRY.  That was one of the best serial killer themed books I’ve read and I couldn’t wait for SAY NO MORE to come out. I’m in several online book clubs and raved about it to not only my in person friends, but in all my clubs, even the Vintage mysteries.  I started SAY NO MORE as soon as I got it and the first chapter was a white knuckle page turner. After that it went south for me.  I put it aside thinking it might be me. Over the past year I picked it up, sometimes re-reading that intense first chapter, sometimes picking up where I left off and it just wasn’t doing it for me. With the arrival of her latest in this series, SAY GOODBYE I knew it was time to sit down and get this one read. It was, as I said, disappointing.

It seemed like each character was having their own personal pity party. The Sokolov family, who I adored in SAY YOUR SORRY started to sound like a bunch of teenagers running around trying to solve a crime. Jeff, the actual teenager, seemed to have it more together than the adults at times. I get it that there’s a nasty cult and a psychopathic killer, but it seemed like every character had some kind of issue they were dealing with and if they started out not having one, they got one when Ephraim killed someone they knew.  And Ephraim wasn’t a serial killer….he just killed everyone he met.

It’s been my experience that when it comes to series either book 2 or 3, sometimes 4, doesn’t measure up.  I saw it recently in Jeffrey B. Burton’s the Keepers and S.A. Lelchuck’s One Got Away where the first books in their series were major page turners and book 2 was just meh.  I’ll pick up the third books in their series to see if it’s the author or if just a book 2 event. Since I already have SAY GOODBYE I’m going to hope this is just a stumble in Rose’s otherwise stellar writing and the series will pick up. 

 

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

 

 

*

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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