Publisher: Grand
Central
Published: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1538733684
Genre: Suspense
Format: Print from Publisher
Reviewed by name and email address: Gina
myreviewbooks@aol.com
FOUR -1/2 HEARTS
Cole Power and Stella Rivers are together again! Not in “real” life but soon to be on the screen. The couple were a dynamic Hollywood tale—meeting on screen, falling in love and marrying only to have their marriage end after Stella crashed in the ways only a Hollywood star can crash—in a very public disaster. Now, with Cole’s son from his first wife, Jackson, grown and a director, he has asked Stella to reunite with him on screen. For Jackson’s debut film they have chosen The Siren, the story of a film star and the emotional tale of her love. When the cast and crew arrive on St. Genesiuis to film there are some surprises—the actress originally hired to play the replacement nanny has suddenly been replaced by Instagram influencer Madison and Stella has a new personal assistant who seems a tad too perfect. Things start moving along rather nicely. Filming is on schedule and the cast and crew work well together. But then cracks start showing…despite NDAs Madison insists on streaming virtually all day every day to her fans. Stella is supposed to be clean and sober but needs daily doses of myriad pills. As perfect as Felicity seems, she has secrets, secrets that could not only bring down the film itself, but the lives of everyone on the island. Taylor, the producer is desperate to ensure The Siren’s success after being fired by her father for a scandal at his studio. And Jackson knows what really happened the night Stella and Cole tried to bury.
And it seems nature will have something to say about all the secrets and deceptions being played as a hurricane hurtles toward St. Genesiuis. Can Stella, Cole, Jackson, Felicity and the other survive the storms within and without?
I enjoyed Katherine St. John’s debut, LION’S DEN so much as soon as I saw her latest release, THE SIREN I had to read it. I dove in as soon as it arrived and had a hard time putting it down. After two late nights and ignoring phone calls I finished it because while I had to know how it ended, I didn’t want to miss one delicious word.
The story starts off almost a women’s fiction with just a tiny touch of chik lit. It quickly moves into a page turning suspense you just can’t put down.
Told from the points of view of the three main female characters—Stella, Felicity and Taylor—the story takes you into their pasts. Interspersed are Instagram, blog and news item posts mainly about Stella. St. John creates characters that you find yourself involved with. Each character is unique—there is no confusing one with another. I hurt for Felicity when her past was revealed and then for Stella. I disliked Madison from her first appearance and got to dislike her more and more as the story went on. She had no redeemable qualities and I would have liked to have seen a worse ending for her.
The island setting is perfect for the story. Not quite a “closed room” mystery but close enough when one character as well as the pending hurricane create their own closed room. While the conflicts in the story are mainly character driven with changing loyalties both between them and the reader, the atmosphere created by the hurricane adds a whole other dimension.
The only part I didn’t care for, which is why this is a 4-1/2 rather than 5 heart review is I’m not a fan of first person present tense. To me it reads like a non-English speaking grammar school student’s first attempt at an essay. It just pulls me out of a story. Fortunately this story only has a few chapters with that voice and I was able to get the gist of that character’s role by skimming.
This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.
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