First of all: this is not Southern gothic. That implies a certain level of social commentary that is not present here. This is just a romance-laden "mystery" that happens to be set mostly in the South. It's an easy read with decent pacing. Unfortunately, it just was not a novel for me. I guessed 90% of the twists, including some that made me roll my eyes. Hard. This includes the fate of Gideon, the boy who went missing decades ago. I didn't like any of the characters, Charlie was weirdly calm throughout the most dangerous of situations, and the writing of Southern characters' speech phonetically came across weirdly condescending.

I received an ARC from Penguin's First to Read.