This novel hits the ground running, literally.

Olivia Reinhart is living each day with the memory of her dead mother. When she was 3-years old, her mother was murdered by her father one day while looking for a Christmas tree. Back then, she was Ariel Benson, but after a brief stint living with her grandmother, a bunch of foster homes, a failed adoption, and then more failed foster homes, Ariel became Olivia and did her best to forget the tragedy of her family.

Everything changes though when Olivia's father's jaw bone is found in the forest not far from where her mother was found dead and no longer is he a suspect in killing her mother, but now another victim.

Olivia can't stay away from her hometown and when she goes back for her father's funeral service, she finds that she can't leave until she knows what happened to her parents and solve the mystery herself. In order to do this, she continues to let everyone believe she is Olivia Reinhart; as emancipated minor that is looking to live in a small town and start over.

As Olivia spends more and more time with all the people her parents knew, she starts to learn different clues that get her closer and closer to catching her parent's murderer. What will happen if the murderer finds out who she is before she can get help? Will she be left in the forest to die just lie her parents?

Henry always seems to deliver a solid and suspense novel. Henry leads you on a trip with twists and turns, she makes you feel like you are certain you know who the killer is to only be completely surprised at the end. A good choice for libraries where Henry is popular, but it isn't a must buy. It feels a lot like her other novels, but when you have a recipe that works, why change it up too much?

The concept for this story, albeit a tad overused, was great. Just the execution and overall pacing felt off. A solid 80% of the book is buildup, just Olivia/Ariel snooping around her old hometown and having a few unsavory encounters with its residents. All of the action is packed into the last 30ish pages and moves at an extremely fast pace compared to the rest of the book.

The whole concept of someone trying to stop her throughout the investigation doesn't show at all until the end. "But the killer is even more determined to stop her." Yeah, that didn't happen until he decided to throw her name into the police records and oh, would you look at that, she's actually the kid of the people you murdered and now it's a problem. This idea really should have been explored much earlier with active attempts to throw her off the trail.

Basically, good concept with bad execution. I understand now why this book was only $3 at my local used bookstore.

3.6/5

I think this is a solid ya thriller. The beginning hooked me, I just lost interest half way through.