Review: Be Afraid by Mary Burton

The Fear Is Terrifying

When police rescue five-year-old Jenna Thompson from the dark closet where she's been held captive for days, they tell her she's a lucky girl. Compared to the rest of her family, it's true. But even with their killer dead of an overdose, Jenna is still trying to find peace twenty-five years later.

But The Truth

On leave from her forensic artist job, Jenna returns to Nashville, the city where she lost so much. Instead of closure, she finds a new horror. Detective Rick Morgan needs Jenna's expertise in identifying the skeletal remains of a young child. The case jogs hazy half-buried memories--and a nagging dread that Jenna's ordeal hasn't ended.

Is Even Worse

Now other women are dying. And as the links between these brutal killings and Jenna's past becomes clear, she knows this time, a madman will leave no survivors. . .

 

Be Afraid is about a woman named Jenna who rolls back into her hometown and is dragged into an ongoing investigation that hits a little too close to home. Jenna is a forensic artist and even though she is taking a break from all of that, she decides to help a couple of Nashville detectives with a case.

That's really all I'm going to say ... I know that the blurb says more but I'm having a hard time finding things that I like about this book and it was starting to flow into my little description. So. Let's just jump right in. From the very beginning of this novel, it was freaking weird. Super weird. I didn't like it at all. I wish I could say what I'm talking about but I'm hoping that some things are changed before the book comes out. I'll just say this ... Madness and Reason. Weird.

I found it really difficult to get to know the characters. The writing style felt just different. Something felt completely off to me during the entire book. It was almost as if it was written without any feeling and it was just putting words onto a page. I would say that this could be just a carryover feeling from the beginning (which was weird, in case you missed that) but since it lasted so long into the novel, I really don't think that it was me. It felt stilted. Like a little kid who is stuck in clothes that are a bit too small because it's summertime and the parents don't want to go spend a fortune on new clothes before school shopping. There just didn't feel like there was any breathing room and things were stifled. 

Be Afraid also read like it was part of a series. There were so very many subplots and side stories and back stories. This also aided in the stilted feeling I was having. There was just too much stuff going on for this to be a single novel. I didn't feel like there needed to be THAT much going on. The story would have been just as good if it was cut down to half of the little subplots and the novel had room to expand rather than trying to fit everything into one novel. 

Unfortunately, this one wasn't for me. But it is really popular with a lot of other people. I'm just not in that mix this time. Oooh ... and I've heard of naming cars and boats and even homes are named in the south ... no one can forget Tara ... but this book takes place in Nashville and these named homes didn't sound like plantations ... this weird house naming thing also contributed to the growing weirdness with this novel. 

Available: April 28th, 2015

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