Don't You Cry

Author: Mary Kubica
Genre: Suspense
Type: e-book
Source: NetGalley
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
First Published: May 17, 2016
First Line: "In hindsight, I should have known right away that something wasn't quite right."

Book Description from GoodReads: In downtown Chicago, a young woman named Esther Vaughan disappears from her apartment without a trace. A haunting letter addressed to My Dearest is found among her possessions, leaving her friend and roommate Quinn Collins to wonder where Esther is and whether or not she's the person Quinn thought she knew. 

Meanwhile, in a small Michigan harbor town an hour outside Chicago, a mysterious woman appears in the quiet coffee shop where eighteen-year-old Alex Gallo works as a dishwasher. He is immediately drawn to her charm and beauty, but what starts as an innocent crush quickly spirals into something far more dark and sinister than he ever expected.  

As Quinn searches for answers about Esther, and Alex is drawn further under Pearl's spell, master of suspense Mary Kubica takes readers on a taut and twisted thrill ride that builds to a stunning conclusion and shows that no matter how fast and far we run, the past always catches up with us in the end.

My Rating: 3.5/5 stars

My Review: Last year Mary Kubica came on my radar as a new-to-me suspense writer.  After reading her novel, Pretty Baby, I was hooked.  Her writing was tight, edge-of-your-seat action abounded, she had great flawed characters and there were twists upon twists. I was in biblio heaven.

In her latest book, Don't You Cry, Kubica deals with a missing roommate and a mysterious woman who suddenly shows up in a small Michigan town.  The story is told via two viewpoints: Quinn, an aimless young woman in Chicago whose roommate, Esther, goes missing and Alex Gallo an equally directionless eighteen-year-old man who lives in a small town outside of Chicago with his drunken father.  As the story progresses their lives merge together resulting in quite a malevolent ending.

What caught me by surprise is how slow the tension building was in this book.  I had expected it to take off from the get-go but readers should consider this to be a slow boil kind of read.  Instead of fast pacing, Kubica focuses on revealing her characters to the reader.  Unfortunately, I found Quinn and Alex to be quite tedious and often annoying with their decided lack of chutzpah yet sudden, deep-seated concern for Esther/Pearl.  While Kubica divulges details to her readers at a much slower pace this time around, in the end, everything comes together.  Readers just have to be patient.

I can't say that I liked this book as much as Pretty Baby but it's still a solid read.  Although I didn't find the characters as interesting this time around, the plot has the twists I associate with Kubica's writing ... just a little further along than I was expecting.  If the reader is patient the plot itself is quite detailed and I enjoyed piecing together the puzzle and finding the links between the characters.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Harlequin MIRA and NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary ebook copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.