In her debut novel, Kristin Ritter takes the readers to a small town that has it's fair share of town secrets:
Abby Williams could not wait to get out of Barrens, Indiana after she graduated high school. Now 10 years later she is back to investigate Optimal Plastics, the town's most high-profile company and economic heart, for environmental reasons but Abby believes that Optimal Plastics holds the information that would also solve an age old disappearance of Kaycee Mitchell, Abby's best friend in high school. Abby knows that the she is there to investigate the environmental transgressions of the company but she cannot put Kaycee's disappearance behind her. What Abby will find that is that all towns have secrets, some more diabolical than other.
This book was pretty good for a debut novel, I found the plot was well laid out and I'm a sucker for a small town read, I love that everyone knows each other and that there is always at least one town dirty secret that they do not want outsiders to know about. When it comes to secrets Ally's hometown of Barrens has them in spades.
Although the premise of this book is very interesting, the main character was such a let down. She doesn't really do any investigating in the book, just kind of goes from rumour to rumour (albeit between drinks) and from two different men that seem to have nothing to do with or affect the plot at all. I'm all for flawed characters, I mean this is what makes them more real, but they need to have some sort or redeeming quality or intelligence to get the job done. I kept trying to find this with Ally and it never materialized.
Overall, I found the book was somewhat predictable and not the thriller that it was pegged to be. Yes, I will agree with the tag line that it is a slow burner, yep slow is true as the first half of the book is not about Abby investigating Optimal Plastics (though Abby investigating anything is hard to come by in this book) but more about getting to know Abby as a character and her relationship with Barrens and it's residences. I just wish this book was more investigative than a returning home type book.
If you like small town based books then I think you will enjoy this book. I think that Ritter does have the ability to tell a story, and I think executed a bit differently I would have loved this book, but this was just an okay read, with me continually wanting to strangle the main character hindered my enjoyment of this book. It will be interesting to see what Ritter comes up with next and I would pick it up.
This is the second book in a series, so you are going to want to read the first book in the series Fear University to understand this world and who/what the main characters are fighting/fighting for.
Winter in the Alaskan North has short days and long nights especially for 65 days of the year, which is perfect for the Aswang to hunt and kill and challenge. This is where Ollie and her friends have been stationed. They need to protect the humans from the Aswang, so each night they along with the other hunters will stalk, hunt and kill. But the fight for survival does not begin and end as one enters and leaves their base, murder is about to happen inside the walls as well, so there is no where that they are safe they always have to be on gaurd, but they only need to try and survive for 65 days, that's doable right?
I liked this one better than the first, I found that this one was darker, more twisted and at times fairly graphic when compared to the first book in the series. Additionally, I did not feel like this book had any down time in the story, as it is the Killing season, there are lots of hunts and killing that need to be achieved as well as trying to figure out what is going on inside the base walls. It was also interesting the family dynamics that are played up in this book that you do not really know who Ollie should trust and really is there more danger in the house rather than outside it. The first book also lacked having more than one point of view, so it was really nice to have Sunny's POV in this book to give a change up from Ollie's very negative one (really she is doom and gloom most of the time). Sunny was also able to give a different perspective on what was happening and how Ollie is perceived by those around her even her friends. For lack of better words having Sunny tell part of the story was very refreshing in this book.
If you are a fan of books with sexual tension well, The Killing Season has is in spades between Ollie and Luke. You will keep wanting to have them interact more and more as the book goes on as eat time is more "heated" than the last. If you are wanting more of a love story/crush then you have Sunny and Hatter, so Collett does a good job of covering both these aspects but at the same time having those relationships secondary to the main premise of the book.
I think my least favourite part in this book is that I was able to figure out the big twist way before it was revealed (which is the same problem I had with the first book in this series) and I was just waiting for the characters to catch up to what I had already figured out. However, this series as a whole so far has an interesting premise which overall does make for an interesting read. I am enjoying this series and it is nice that Collett has improved from the first book to the second, which makes me have high hopes for the third, which I am planning on picking up soon. Enjoy!!!
