ARC Review: Pretty as a Picture by Elizabeth Little

Pretty as a Picture
Author: Elizabeth Little
Publication: Viking (February 25, 2020)

Description: An egomaniacal movie director, an isolated island, and a decades-old murder--the addictive new novel from the bestselling author of Dear Daughter

Marissa Dahl, a shy but successful film editor, travels to a small island off the coast of Delaware to work with the legendary--and legendarily demanding--director Tony Rees on a feature film with a familiar logline.

Some girl dies. 

It's not much to go on, but the specifics don't concern Marissa. Whatever the script is, her job is the same. She'll spend her days in the editing room, doing what she does best: turning pictures into stories.

But she soon discovers that on this set, nothing is as it's supposed to be--or as it seems. There are rumors of accidents and indiscretions, of burgeoning scandals and perilous schemes. Half the crew has been fired. The other half wants to quit. Even the actors have figured out something is wrong. And no one seems to know what happened to the editor she was hired to replace.

Then she meets the intrepid and incorrigible teenage girls who are determined to solve the real-life murder that is the movie's central subject, and before long, Marissa is drawn into the investigation herself.

The only problem is, the killer may still be on the loose. And he might not be finished.

A wickedly funny exploration of our cultural addiction to tales of murder and mayhem and a thrilling, behind-the-scenes whodunit, Pretty as a Picture is a captivating page-turner from one of the most distinctive voices in crime fiction.

My Thoughts: Marissa Dahl is a film editor. She is also apparently somewhere on the autism spectrum. Things in her personal life have made her want to take a job just to get away for a while. Even though she had a previous embarrassing encounter with director Tony Rees, his job would get her far enough away.

She isn't expecting a sixteen page NDA and the need to immediately take off for an unknown location which turns out to be an island off the coast of Delaware. Rees is making a movie about a murder that happened in 1994 and some of the suspects and others are still there on the island which might be why the set has been plagued with a series of accidents. Rees's character explains why there have also been a larger than usual number of employees fired. Calling Rees a control freak understates his personality.

Marissa is more or less left to sink or swim as she tries to get a handle on her new job. The movie part should be easy because she understands movies. But dealing with the people involved is very hard for her. She doesn't follow conversations well. She doesn't understand jokes. She is incredibly shy. And she finds herself with a bodyguard who seems really accepting of her peculiarities.

Marissa soon has questions and two young girls who are the children of hotel staff drag her into their investigation into the original murder just in time for there to be a second murder.

I loved Marissa's character and her unique way of seeing the world. I also loved the way the book was laid out with insertions of a podcast done after the whole case was wrapped up which gives us another way of looking at what happened.

Favorite Quote:

Everything in the whole horrible world would be eight million times easier if we all just said what we meant and meant what we said and sure, we would probably have to sacrifice drama and comedy and irony and suspense, but honestly, the time we saved might be worth it. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from Edelweiss. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: The Au Pair by Emma Rous

The Au Pair
Author: Emma Rous
Publication: Berkley (January 8, 2019)

Description: Seraphine Mayes and her twin brother, Danny, were born in the middle of summer at their family's estate on the Norfolk coast. Within hours of their birth, their mother threw herself from the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of dark cloaks, changelings, and the aloof couple who drew a young nanny into their inner circle.

Now an adult, Seraphine mourns the recent death of her father. While going through his belongings, she uncovers a family photograph that raises dangerous questions. It was taken on the day the twins were born, and in the photo, their mother, surrounded by her husband and her young son, is smiling serenely and holding just one baby.

Who is the child, and what really happened that day?

My Thoughts: This story interweaves two characters and two time periods. In the present day, Seraphine is dealing with the recent death of her father at their home Summerbourne on the Norfolk coast. When cleaning out her father's things, she discovers a photo of the day she and her twin brother Danny were born. But the photo shows only one baby along with her parents and older brother Edwin.

Seraphine has always felt different than her two brothers. They look alike and have similar outgoing personalities. Seraphine has always felt like an outsider in her own family. She was raised on the story of her mother's suicide on the day they were born. No one - her father or her grandmother - will ever talk about that day and what happened when her mother died. Rumors of changelings and family curses told by the locals were a torment to her as a child and fed her own confusion about her place in her family.

She decides to try to track down the au pair who was taking care of Edwin and who spent a year with the family leaving right after their birth and her mother's death. The second story takes place in  1992 and is told by Laura Silveira who was the au pair for the family and who tells the story of the family she worked for and the tangled and twisted events of that year.

While Laura was quite easy to find, she doesn't want to talk about that time. And someone else doesn't want the past brought up again and enforces this with creepy letters, threats on mirrors, and messages burned into the lawn. Despite her brother's wishes to leave things alone, Laura persists in trying to find out what happened twenty-five years earlier.

I enjoyed this twisted story of family drama. The characters were well-drawn and interesting people. The writing was engaging and kept me glued to the story.

Favorite Quote:

She looks from me to Danny.

"But I look nothing like the lady in the photo and that would leave both of you with no know parents, and yet you both do look like your parents..."

Her shoulders slump. She shakes her head in defeat.

"Well. I'm glad we sorted that out," Danny says.

I glare at him, and then Kiara pulls a face, and then Edwin snorts, and suddenly, we're all kind of laughing, united in our bafflement.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from Edelweiss. You can buy your copy here.