Thanks to the author for an ARC of this book. I generally love Jamison’s stories, but this one disappointed me. Told entirely from the POV of Hayley in first-person, past tense, it almost felt like reading a diary. Hayley seems immature, and as a result, the writing reflects that immaturity. Although this is a good thing, theoretically, it annoyed me. It makes sense that a diary would be written in the past tense, but it wouldn’t include any clear foreshadowing. In this case, Hayley always seemed to end chapters with how the events related could have been a sign of what was to come. I found the repeated foreshadowing to be a bit heavy-handed and could have done with less of that. I think that the actions of the characters should have been enough to convey what might happen, even if Hayley didn’t understand at the time.
Although the writing and storytelling is fine, it doesn’t reflect the caliber I’ve come to expect from Jamison. If this were the first book of hers I was reading, I might not want to read another. Thankfully, I have read others so I know how good she can be. It could be that I just didn’t empathize with any of these characters; I didn’t relate to them. And I much prefer strong heroines who know their minds and aren’t afraid to follow their instincts. If it’s simply that I didn’t like the heroine, I have to admit, Jamison did an excellent job of portraying an uncertain, immature young woman who suffers from a serious lack of confidence in her romantic relationships. Fortunately, she doesn’t feel that same inferiority when it comes to her singing.
Typical of her writing skill, Jamison takes the smallest of details to paint a bigger picture. Hayley and Kyle are roommates and neither seem to ever have money. She works at Early Rise, a coffee shop, and he works at Burger King. At one point, Hayley goes to their refrigerator to grab a Coke and describes what was in there. Aside from the Coke, “...the only other things in there were Parmesan cheese, ketchup, and baloney.” I loved the baloney detail, which seems like it must be the cheapest of meats. The Parmesan cheese made me wonder why they’d have an upscale cheese like that—although it could have been the Kraft shakeable kind—and that added some intrigue. It made me wonder if there was something more to know about them. Finally, the ketchup is fun because it’s such a superfluous item, but one you’d expect to see there. My only suggestion is that packets would have made more sense, since Kyle worked at Burger King.
Kyle, who seems like such a jerk from the beginning, surprised me with a show of emotion. After dating for seven or eight years, fighting almost from the start because they were so young, Hayley finally realizes they will be better off if they’re not together. When she talks to him about it, he pulls her into his arms and she cries. But as she pulls back from him, she can see that he was crying too. This, alone, helped to give Kyle more than two dimensions. He became more than a caricature of a moody, selfish a-hole. When he finds love, which I assume he will do in a future installment of this new series, the reader won’t see him as undeserving.
One of their bandmates in Intent to Murder, Pedro, has a lot of good one-liners, but this one was my favorite. Flirting with the waitress, he asks where she’s been all his life and insists he needs her number. She tells him what works on most men, “I have a boyfriend.” His rejoinder was awesome. “We won’t tell him. He’ll just wonder why you’ve started smiling so much.”
If you’re not already a fan of Ms. Jamison, I wouldn’t suggest this as a first foray into her writing. There are so many others I’ve rated higher. Since I’ve read them over the course of many years, and since I’ve undoubtedly matured along with her writing, I wouldn’t feel comfortable recommending one in particular (although I really enjoyed the Bullet series). All I will say is that this is probably more for her hardcore fans because it’s not her best.