Kerry Watts

In this first book in a new series by Kerry Watts, Detective Jessie Blake takes on her first big case. She is called in when a teen named Shannon Ross never arrived home after school. Jessie has a vigorous task ahead of her, and all the while, she is hiding something dreadful from her past. Never could Jesse have imagined that this very case could possibly expose her secrets.

As it turns out, secrets is what this is all about. What Jessie begins to expose in the small town starts off as small anomalies and eventually explodes. As things progress, layer upon layer of details and connections are revealed. Jessie does her best to put all of the pieces together, all the while hoping that another teen does not lose their life.

This story is delivered in two timelines, thus offering varying points of view. Heartlands was intriguing from the very start. There were a lot of twists and turns and the conclusion was utterly shocking. I look forward to continuing this series.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.… (mehr)

Even though a lot was happening in Her Missing Child by Kerry Watts, I didn’t feel like a lot of it had to do with the crime. A major character in this book was postpartum depression. It is a very serious condition, one that everyone needs to be aware of and what can be done to help, so I am glad Watts wrote about it. But, when I read a police procedural I want more scientific information, crime scene investigations, in depth interrogations, or courtroom drama. Not once were fingerprints taken or fibers/hairs looked for at the scene of the crime.

And throughout the book I kept feeling like I was missing something between Jessie and her ex-husband. It wasn’t until I was looking up information for putting the review up on the website that I realized it’s book two in the Detective Jessie Blake series.

Almost every book that I’ve read that’s not the first in the series, gives enough background information so you are caught up with the story and it can be read as a stand alone. Although Her Missing Child could still be read without reading Heartlands first, you may also get the feeling that you are missing an important piece of information. This could have been an easy enough fix and since I read an ARC maybe in the finished book this information will be included.

A few of the twists and turns of the story were interesting. And a few I didn’t see coming, which is always nice, but the ending felt like the author knew this isn't a strong book and wanted to add something for shock value.

And some of the characters were pointless besides being used as a red herring and then not mentioned any more. Many of the other reviews comment that there are too many characters and it makes the book confusing. If Watts hadn't been using them as red herrings, the number of people in the book would have been less, thus making the book easier to read, but there would not have been as many twists making the book very boring.

If you still want to read this book, I would suggest reading Heartlands first and go into this book knowing that it’s not as heavy of a police procedural book as others. If I had known this and decided to still read it, I may have given it a higher score.… (mehr)

The premise of this story was good, and I enjoyed the twists and turns. A good psychological thriller. The characters were, mostly, very believable, and at times intimidating (if I'd been at home alone last night, I would have needed to leave the light on!). I had a few issues with the relationship between one of the detectives and their netball playing partner, which felt a little contrived, but the rest of the relationships in the book were excellent, and worked well. It's always good to truly despise someone, like the girlfriend, and the killer!
I really wanted it to be a four or five star story, and it has the bones to be such a story, but the actual formatting of the book, as I read it on my Kindle, was well under par. Halfway through a page, the scene would suddenly change, and the character point of view would change. The point of views jumped around so much that at times, I had to track back to see who/what I was reading. Highly disconcerting. Maybe the chapters became muddled when the manuscript was uploaded to Amazon? Or perhaps a small re-gig of the page breaks or chapter structure would really help a good story become an excellent story.
My only other question was how did the killer got his hands on the drugs - it's never addressed in the story. How did he have access to the stuff he used?
As I said, I wanted this to be a four or five star story, but the formatting lets it down. Hopefully an easy fix for the author.… (mehr)