ChickLit Murder Mystery/Thriller: An Entertaining and Smart Summertime Novel
The air is hot and sultry. And another hurricane is forming in the Caribbean with it's eye on St. Medard's Bay on the Gulf Coast of Alabama. Here's a word to the wise: Not everyone who dies during a hurricane in St. Medard's dies from the storm. Sometimes people are murdered during hurricanes in this tiny beach town.
Written by Rachel Hawkins, this ChickLit murder mystery/psychological thriller/suspenseful soap opera novel (yes, it's quite the genre mish-mash) is a gripping page-turner.
This is the story of Geneva Corliss, a 40-year-old unlucky-in-love woman who has taken over running the Rosalie Inn, a beachfront hotel her family has owned for generations. The inn has an eerie reputation: When hurricanes strike St. Medard's, which they seem to do with great regularity, the Rosalie survives when so many other structures are destroyed.
Worried about the financial impact of so many empty rooms at the Rosalie, Geneva is thrilled when a writer named August Fletcher calls to book two rooms for an indefinite period of time for himself and the subject of a book he is writing. The subject in question is Gloria Bailey, who goes by Lo and grew up in St. Medard's. Lo has quite the reputation. Beautiful and sexy, she had an affair at age 19 with Landon Fitzroy, who was 11 years older and the son of the governor. When he turned up dead in a hurricane in 1985, his injuries were not consistent with a vicious storm—more like a vicious human being. Lo was arrested and tried for murder, but a hung jury resulted in her release. Now she is back, hoping to write her memoir with August and finally set the record straight.
Ah, but nothing is as simple or straightforward as it would seem. Lo has secrets…lots of them. And one by one, she spills them, shocking Geneva and August and making Geneva wonder if Lo returned to St. Medard's not to write a book but to get revenge.
Oh, and guess what? Another hurricane—Hurricane Lizzie—is headed straight to St. Medard's. Who will survive? Who will die? And will anyone be murdered? (And for what it's worth, fairly early on I thought I had figured out Landon Fitzroy's murderer…and I was almost right save for a major twist to it all.)
Rachel Hawkins cleverly and seamlessly tells the story from each character's point of view—some of whom are more reliable and truthful than others—as well as going back and forth in time.
As the temperatures rise and the monster storm approaches, the electrifying plot simmers with tension making this an entertaining and smart summertime novel—even if it does read like a soap opera at times.
(07/02/26)
