**Many thanks to Scene of the Crime and William Morrow for an ARC of this book provided via NetGalley!**
When you go to buy a used car, it can often feel like you are walking through a minefield.
Even if you find a reputable dealership and have heard good things about the personnel, there's ALWAYS the chance that your 'dream' car...you know the one you just CAN'T believe is such a good deal, with such great mileage, and a 'all of THIS is included!?' sort of warranty could turn out to be be a total and complete lemon the minute you pull in your driveway at home.
And while this 'deliciously twisty and suspenseful' novel promised all of those too good to be true sort of promises...the unhinged, implausible ridiculousness of this book had me scrambling to brush up on lemon laws...because even more precious than gold is the TIME I will never get back after going on this ridiculous journey with one of the most naive narrators I have EVER read...and honestly not caring at ALL whether she made it out unscathed!
Our story begins with said narrator, Eve Sylvester, and a quick glimpse into her great grand love affair with Xander (and get prepared to read that name...A LOT), which is cut short when he tragically passes away in a (completely unnecessary) car accident. Eve is heartbroken, and for some reason Xander's parents seem to blame her for the incident. With no other close relatives, family, or friends of her own (why, we aren't ever told) this down on her luck woman finds out even MORE shocking news: she is carrying Xander's baby. With the prospect of having to raise this child on her own, with very little money or support, she seems to have the proverbial storm cloud following her...until the PERFECT stranger JUST HAPPENS to sidle up to her with an offer she cannot refuse...
go figure.
🙄
Turns out uber-wealthy couple Julia and Christopher Hygate are in need of a nanny for their child...and are willing to let Eve be a live-in nanny to said child on their gorgeous and secluded private island. (Yup, no red flags there! 🥱) Eve jumps at the prospect to give her life some meaning again and accepts. But when she arrives, she finds not one but TWO rooms (one set up for a baby boy and the other for a baby girl) and realizes that the baby she will be caring for will be her own...sort of. The Hygates need to convince the world that Eve's baby is truly theirs in order to inherit a great fortune...so Julia's going to wear a fake belly, abstain from alcohol, etc., and once the kiddo is born, Eve will slide into the role of 'nanny' that she was sold at the get-go. But the crew at the Hygate mansion seems a bit...off, and there are unexplained boats going in and out of the marina at all hours...and Eve begins to get suspicious. (FINALLY) Was this picture-perfect opportunity that fell into her lap for no particular reason ACTUALLY too good to be true after all?! 😱
😑
I tried very hard to keep sarcasm out of that quick recap...but with a plot this bonkers, I'm not sure that could have happened, honestly. From about 15% in, I knew this book was going to be completely off the rails and the eye rolls began...and they never truly let up. From a heavy emphasis on mourning Xander (which I guess was supposed to make us feel sorry for Eve but which I quickly found to be grating and repetitive) to the complete lack of common sense exhibited by Eve at pretty much all times, this is the narrator you're going to want to bop upside the head...over and over. Even in her blissful ignorance at the beginning (before she's involved in the Hygate's schemes) she asks some pretty straightforward questions and doesn't get a direct answer AT ALL:
"Can I ask how old your son or daughter is? Zelde said you've just got one child, but she didn't mention whether it's a boy or a girl."
"That's right, just the one," said Christopher, and then he put Zelde back on, and she booked me a flight for the next afternoon.
...Okay. So not only did Christopher not answer your question, but apparently Eve thought she should a) not protest this at all and b) get on a flight paid for by a cagey stranger.
Riiiiight. 🤦♀️
This was my first clue that this book was going to descend into weirdness and stay there, and trust me...it does. No matter how uneasy Eve feels at any given time, she (in the next breath) thinks everything is fine and is willing to go along with every scheme. As an author, Carlyle makes this even more unclear, as conversations not only lack any sort of natural flow, but are at times laughably odd. I didn't have any sort of buy-in, and Eve was constantly TELLING us details rather than Carlyle showing us through her storytelling, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. There's also a plot line involving gecko and lizard smuggling that I guess maybe makes sense if you're from Australia, but to me was COMPLETELY out of left field.
And then there's the child in question, Alec and Carlyle's description of him, which may be one of the most unrealistic parts of the book. (And again, there are plenty to choose from!) Alec, a SIX year old, not only can drive a boat, but speaks in articulate, fluent sentences with adult-level vocabulary words in them too. I'm not sure how many children the author has spent time around lately, but Alec isn't even presented as some sort of prodigy...this is just 'normal'. We are supposed to feel all of this tortured unhappiness at the situation and the fact that Eve isn't allowed to just TELL Alec she is his mother, etc...but I kept questioning WHY she had put herself in this position in the first place, since she quite literally SIGNED UP FOR THIS...and even when more of an explanation as to what is going on is revealed, you aren't going to be more sympathetic to anyone.
All of this builds to what can only be described as the Far-Fetched Cherry on top of the Unbelievable Pie...and as someone who is not exactly a fan of a plot involving this particular set of crimes (and no, it's not just gecko smuggling although I'm not for THAT, either!) I wish I had known what this book was truly about going in so I could have skipped it entirely. There is an attempt at a 'gotcha' twist pretty far along in the book, but although it was confusing for about fourteen seconds, I didn't get fooled. And when the big main 'bad guy' is revealed, everything gets even MORE ridiculous. To cap it off, there is an incredibly unnecessary epilogue where we are supposed to believe something even MORE unrealistic than everything you've read thus far...and let's just say, Carlyle could have left well enough (or what was left of it) ALONE.
Remember that minefield I mentioned earlier? Although the minefield itself can be plenty dangerous when the bombs are a-ticking below, this book and an already-decimated stretch of land had one other thing in common:
...I couldn't even COUNT the number of holes.
2.5 stars