This book was a bit of a mixed bag of feelings for me. It wasn’t bad, but there were a few things that didn’t sit right with me and a few things that I think could’ve been improved.

First of all, most of the prose and environmental description were really good. The scene was set really well and I felt like I could vividly picture what was going on. The tidbits scattered through about the ecology of the marsh and biology in general were interesting, too, though they may have been too much and too complex for some without a knowledge or interest in science and/or ecology. There were some descriptive statements that were not good, however, like when Chase is explained as having “ice-pack blue eyes”. The nature descriptions were definitely far better than the descriptions of everything else.

In terms of the story, some parts were a let down for me. I think part of this comes down to the marketing of the book and the hype it has been given. I expected a lot more mystery, but realistically the murder plot is only a sub plot relative to learning about Kya’s life. I was disappointed that there wasn’t more foreshadowing and more chapters about the mystery aspect woven through the story, and the fact we only learned what really happened to Chase in the last couple pages as a side note was kind of disappointing. I did expect more of this, given that the blurb does mention this murder, but there’s far more emphasis on the trial than the actual murder and who did it.

I get this book was set in the past, when racism was rife through society and segregation in America still existed, but it was written in 2018 and I don’t think it was necessary for a white author to have explicitly written the n-slur in the book. The racism could’ve been highlighted just as well without having to include the slur.

Additionally, I just really couldn’t root for Kya and Tate together seeing as he was 18 and she was barely 14 when they started their relationship, and she was also described as being mentally younger because of her isolated upbringing without her family and her lack of education. This just felt icky to me and I couldn’t get past it.

The dialogue written with an accent sometimes made it hard to decipher, not having heard many people with thick southern accents before and some accents were different than others.

Overall, the read wasn’t too bad, but the hype of this book on the internet and advertisement as a “mystery” novel set my expectations high and they weren’t really reached. In saying this, if you’re looking for a historical literature read with a dash of mystery, then you may enjoy this.