Dying to Read by Lorena McCourtney {Book Review}

I bought this book based on two silly reasons.

I saw the word SALE and the cover has my favourite colour all over it.

I know those aren’t the best reasons so buy books, but hey, we all do some weird stuff every now and then.

It’s a Christian fiction novel, the first of the genre that I’ve read.

Dying to Read is the first book of the Cate Kinkaid Files series and the series only has three books. The last one was published in 2014 and I’m not sure if there will be more. The author did publish another series, Ivy Malone Mysteries, which has five books.

DISCLAIMER: This review could contain possible spoilers based on my opinions. All opinions and views are my own.

Book Review: Dying to Read by Lorena McCourtney #bookreview
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Plot:

Cate Kinkaid is waiting for the right job to land in her lap. Until then she takes on her uncle’s offer to be a private investigator for his company.

Her assignment is simple: confirm that a certain woman lives at a certain address. It’s a done deal, right?

Instead of the woman in question, she finds a dead body at the address, a bunch of nosy book readers and a trail that leads in a different direction.

Cate knows that she should just report what she has found and stay at away, but her curiosity seems to get the better of her and takes her down a path of danger that she’s not prepared for.

My Opinion: Positive Thoughts

The book is written in plain language and could easily be finished in one sitting.

My Opinion: Negative Thoughts

I tried seeing what the author tried to do with the title and the play on words that was used, which was smart but not entirely suited to the book’s plot.

The beginning of the book is extremely slow and I struggled to get past the first few chapters because there was nothing gripping.

The plot was a little weak and lacked the suspense you’d expect to find with a private investigator stumbling upon a murder, or any person for that matter.

Cate is just something else, and not in the good sense. She doesn’t listen to anyone and ends up in trouble over and over again, especially when her life has been threatened plenty of times. The first time was like, “Oh no, but thank goodness you’re okay.” The rest of the times, “You’ll basically asking for it to happen”.

The fact that she withholds crucial information from the police and her uncle didn’t make sense to me either, especially in a murder case-it’s not something you just ignore because it has nothing to do with the assignment you were given. Then not reporting Willow, with all the pieces of information disclosed linked to past and present crimes but instead protecting her.

The typos in this book are ridiculous. I think the editing part of the book was completely overlooked and it was just sent on to be published. I could understand if it was just one or two things, but the amount this book contained is bad.

Overview:

The story was very slow in the beginning and finally picked up the pace a lot of chapters in, making it a little less painful to read.

Here’s a short overview: if you want to become a private investigator, read this book and then do the exact opposite.

Cate’s decision to continue being a private investigator at the end baffles me. The lack of common sense and terrible decision making is what helped me decide not want to continue with the series.

More of all of the above? Hard pass for me.