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A review by romancelibrary
Murder at Sunrise Lake by Christine Feehan
1.5
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Murder at Sunrise Lake is the most painfully boring, repetitive, and predictable book I have read so far this year. It's a romantic suspense with a paranormal element. The heroine has psychic dreams of serial killings before they happen and her visions lead her to believe that a serial killer will soon disrupt her idyllic small town.
What I liked:
- The romance:
There's no steam, but I liked Stella and Sam's relationship. They've known each other for 2 years. Their friendship and mutual attraction are already established. My only complaints: 1) lack of steam and 2) lack of flashbacks showing us how they met and how their friendship started and grew. I wish there had been more build up between Stella and Sam.
- The setting:
The story is set in the Eastern Sierras, so the setting is incredibly atmospheric and beautiful. I truly enjoyed the landscape descriptions. It was very immersive and added a layer of eeriness to the mystery plot line.
What I didn't like:
The plot is interesting enough, but it is so dreadfully slow-paced. This book could have been significantly shortened. There is a massive information dump about every single one of Stella's friends, which takes up at least 20% of the book. Stella has long and repetitive inner monologues about how sexy and protective Sam is: "He was Sam" or "Sam is this and that" or "Wow Sam is so hot." All of this is repeated a MILLION FUCKING TIMES.
Stella's group of friends reminded me of a group of high school girls or college freshmen girls. They did not read as grown ass adults. Stella has about a million friends even though she's described as a reserved woman who has a lot of secrets. Oh, and by the way, all of her friends are super hot women who attract all the men in town. You will never forget just how hot and perfect these women are because the author will remind you of their hotness in every single chapter. This also applies to all of the men in this book. The author will remind you on every other page that the men have ~oooooooh muscless babyyyy~ and that they are veeeeeerrrryyyyyy sexaayyyy. She will repeat this over and over again until all your brain can think about is "wow these people are SO HOT." 70% of this book is all about how Stella's girlfriends are hot supermodels who make the sexy muscular men pant like dogs.
Instead of wasting so many pages on this repetitive bullshit, the author could have spent more time writing an interesting and fast-paced mystery to keep the reader's attention. The killer's identity was so obvious from the very beginning. The author didn't even try to conceal his identity lol. I also wish that the romance was spicy. Regrettably, I yawned my way through this book.
P.S. One of the two ~ethnic~ female characters escaped an unwanted arranged marriage because obviously that's the only way you can add diversity in your story.
Murder at Sunrise Lake is the most painfully boring, repetitive, and predictable book I have read so far this year. It's a romantic suspense with a paranormal element. The heroine has psychic dreams of serial killings before they happen and her visions lead her to believe that a serial killer will soon disrupt her idyllic small town.
What I liked:
- The romance:
There's no steam, but I liked Stella and Sam's relationship. They've known each other for 2 years. Their friendship and mutual attraction are already established. My only complaints: 1) lack of steam and 2) lack of flashbacks showing us how they met and how their friendship started and grew. I wish there had been more build up between Stella and Sam.
- The setting:
The story is set in the Eastern Sierras, so the setting is incredibly atmospheric and beautiful. I truly enjoyed the landscape descriptions. It was very immersive and added a layer of eeriness to the mystery plot line.
What I didn't like:
The plot is interesting enough, but it is so dreadfully slow-paced. This book could have been significantly shortened. There is a massive information dump about every single one of Stella's friends, which takes up at least 20% of the book. Stella has long and repetitive inner monologues about how sexy and protective Sam is: "He was Sam" or "Sam is this and that" or "Wow Sam is so hot." All of this is repeated a MILLION FUCKING TIMES.
Stella's group of friends reminded me of a group of high school girls or college freshmen girls. They did not read as grown ass adults. Stella has about a million friends even though she's described as a reserved woman who has a lot of secrets. Oh, and by the way, all of her friends are super hot women who attract all the men in town. You will never forget just how hot and perfect these women are because the author will remind you of their hotness in every single chapter. This also applies to all of the men in this book. The author will remind you on every other page that the men have ~oooooooh muscless babyyyy~ and that they are veeeeeerrrryyyyyy sexaayyyy. She will repeat this over and over again until all your brain can think about is "wow these people are SO HOT." 70% of this book is all about how Stella's girlfriends are hot supermodels who make the sexy muscular men pant like dogs.
Instead of wasting so many pages on this repetitive bullshit, the author could have spent more time writing an interesting and fast-paced mystery to keep the reader's attention. The killer's identity was so obvious from the very beginning. The author didn't even try to conceal his identity lol. I also wish that the romance was spicy. Regrettably, I yawned my way through this book.
P.S. One of the two ~ethnic~ female characters escaped an unwanted arranged marriage because obviously that's the only way you can add diversity in your story.