3/5 stars. Audio book. I listen to Crime Junkie from time to time and enjoy it. I also got The Butcher and The Wren by Alaina Urquhart from the Morbid podcast to compare them both so that review will be coming soon. I enjoyed the narrator and the back of forth between the past and the present.

Overall, the story was pretty good. What really bothered me the most about this book was that the whole reason Margot went back to Wakarusa was to take care of her uncle and she did a really shitty job at that. I see the motivation to break the story she had, but it was bothersome the care that she provided to someone she supposedly loved so much. I have seen in other reviews that people compared the story to the JonBenet Ramsey case. While I can see some of the similarities, the only parallel was how young the victim was at her death and that people thought family members committed the murder. I won’t say any more than that. To me, I did not see this. I really did not like any of the characters, but that was how they were written, and maybe that was the point.

I am not normally a reader of thrillers, but I have branched out this year. I know that thrillers have a build up to a climax at the end. This book literally did not do this until the last 30 minutes. Revelations were still being made with five minutes left in the story. The ending felt so strange and was incredibly abrupt, but I did not expect the ending at all, which helped boost the rating I gave the book.

I greatly appreciated that Ashley Flowers wrote the book and set it in a place that she knew. This is paramount to making a story more plausible. I would recommend to anyone who enjoys thrillers and who might want to support the podcast if they are a fan.