Black Rock Bay Cover
BLACK ROCK BAY
Brianna Labuskes
Detective Mia Hart and her partner, Isabel “Izzy” Santiago investigate cold case crimes, and they make a good team -- albeit a fairly new one. Fifteen years ago, Mia fled the small-town gossip of her hometown, a tiny island off the coast of Maine called St. Lucy’s. She has no plans to return, until a body is fished out of the icy waters surrounding the island. Mia reluctantly returns to St. Lucy’s only to find that the locals are still closing ranks and protecting their own. As the ghosts of Mia’s past begin to resurface, the partners are left with more questions than when they came. Could this recent death be tied to the secrets and lies of the past that Mia has been running from?
Sigh. I wanted to like this book, but I just didn’t. Mia was a difficult character to like, and the back and forth narrative between her and Izzy made the book feel more disjointed than was necessary. The whole “islander vs. outsider” dynamic was incredibly irritating to me. I found myself not really caring what happened and being easily distracted from the story.
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The conclusion of the book was so sudden, not to mention wildly unbelievable. The separate moments when each of the detectives puts two and two together were so vague; it was never really clear how they both figured out the mystery.
I’ve read a lot of books about sociopaths, and this particular sociopath was underwhelming at best. There was so much allusion to the “unspeakable” acts that Lacey manipulated. But that’s just it -- they were unspoken. There wasn’t enough information given to make her character at all believable. I would have preferred a longer book with more story development and more detail into Lacey’s sociopathy. How was she able to control people the way she did? When did she begin manipulating people? Why were her “pets” willing to do her bidding, even killing for her? It was all a bit trite, in my opinion. Overall, I do not recommend this book. Instead, maybe check out Lubuskes’ Girls of Glass.