Dead Jealous by Sharon Jones
Oct. 26th, 2013 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Last summer, in a boating accident, Poppy Sinclair survived a brush with death.
But the girl she finds face down in a lake wasn’t so lucky.
As Poppy fights to discover the truth behind what she believes is murder, she also discovers that people are not always as they seem.
Slipping into a deep web of lies, jealousy and heart-stopping danger, Poppy comes to realise that the one thing that can save her has been right there, all the time.
16-year-old Poppy Sinclair agrees to go to a pagan festival with her mum and step-father Jonathan, ostensibly so she can attend their hand-fastening ceremony. In reality though, she’s a sceptic who’s only going so she’s got an excuse not to attend Julia’s 18th birthday party. Julia’s the girlfriend of Poppy’s best friend Michael and Poppy’s realised that she’s in love with him herself.
At the festival Poppy meets Beth who’s looking for her friend Maya who disappeared a year before. She also meets Tariq, a handsome young man who runs a burger van at the festival and seems to fancy her too.
When Beth is found drowned in the nearby lake, Poppy’s convinced that she’s been murdered even though the police believe it’s an accident. Determined to find the killer, Poppy, begins investigating the other people attending the festival, uncovering a web of secrets and lies that lead her deeper into danger and threaten her own life …
Sharon Jones debut YA novel is a flabby thriller with supernatural overtones that revolves around a love triangle between Poppy, Tariq and Michael that’s skewered too much in one direction. Ultimately it’s a book that doesn’t know what it wants to be and Poppy doesn’t convince in the slightest as a detective, driven by blind suspicions unsupported by evidence and blundering along from one discovery into another. I enjoyed the pagan elements, which are portrayed sympathetically but the supporting characters are little more than cyphers and the revelation of the killer wasn’t really supported by the earlier story. I doubt that I’ll be checking out the rest of this series.
Poppy is an okay character but the ‘I’m in love with my best friend’ storyline has been done to death and there’s nothing in her relationship here with Michael that really held my interest. Similarly, while I enjoyed the depiction of paganism, I wish that Poppy’s scepticism had been treated with the same respect as Jones reaches too readily for supernatural elements to bolster the plot. Tariq was underdeveloped as a character and I wished that more had been made of a darker element to his storyline, which is brushed aside without any consideration of the implications.
As a thriller it lacked tension and the police procedural elements are unbelievable. It’s a book that’ll probably appeal more to romance fans than thriller fans and as such I won’t be reading on.
The Verdict:
Sharon Jones debut YA novel is a flabby thriller with supernatural overtones that revolves around a love triangle between Poppy, Tariq and Michael that’s skewered too much in one direction. Ultimately it’s a book that doesn’t know what it wants to be and Poppy doesn’t convince in the slightest as a detective, driven by blind suspicions unsupported by evidence and blundering along from one discovery into another. I enjoyed the pagan elements, which are portrayed sympathetically but the supporting characters are little more than cyphers and the revelation of the killer wasn’t really supported by the earlier story. I doubt that I’ll be checking out the rest of this series.
DEAD JEALOUS was released in the United Kingdom on 4th July 2013. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the free copy of this book.
Last summer, in a boating accident, Poppy Sinclair survived a brush with death.
But the girl she finds face down in a lake wasn’t so lucky.
As Poppy fights to discover the truth behind what she believes is murder, she also discovers that people are not always as they seem.
Slipping into a deep web of lies, jealousy and heart-stopping danger, Poppy comes to realise that the one thing that can save her has been right there, all the time.
16-year-old Poppy Sinclair agrees to go to a pagan festival with her mum and step-father Jonathan, ostensibly so she can attend their hand-fastening ceremony. In reality though, she’s a sceptic who’s only going so she’s got an excuse not to attend Julia’s 18th birthday party. Julia’s the girlfriend of Poppy’s best friend Michael and Poppy’s realised that she’s in love with him herself.
At the festival Poppy meets Beth who’s looking for her friend Maya who disappeared a year before. She also meets Tariq, a handsome young man who runs a burger van at the festival and seems to fancy her too.
When Beth is found drowned in the nearby lake, Poppy’s convinced that she’s been murdered even though the police believe it’s an accident. Determined to find the killer, Poppy, begins investigating the other people attending the festival, uncovering a web of secrets and lies that lead her deeper into danger and threaten her own life …
Sharon Jones debut YA novel is a flabby thriller with supernatural overtones that revolves around a love triangle between Poppy, Tariq and Michael that’s skewered too much in one direction. Ultimately it’s a book that doesn’t know what it wants to be and Poppy doesn’t convince in the slightest as a detective, driven by blind suspicions unsupported by evidence and blundering along from one discovery into another. I enjoyed the pagan elements, which are portrayed sympathetically but the supporting characters are little more than cyphers and the revelation of the killer wasn’t really supported by the earlier story. I doubt that I’ll be checking out the rest of this series.
Poppy is an okay character but the ‘I’m in love with my best friend’ storyline has been done to death and there’s nothing in her relationship here with Michael that really held my interest. Similarly, while I enjoyed the depiction of paganism, I wish that Poppy’s scepticism had been treated with the same respect as Jones reaches too readily for supernatural elements to bolster the plot. Tariq was underdeveloped as a character and I wished that more had been made of a darker element to his storyline, which is brushed aside without any consideration of the implications.
As a thriller it lacked tension and the police procedural elements are unbelievable. It’s a book that’ll probably appeal more to romance fans than thriller fans and as such I won’t be reading on.
The Verdict:
Sharon Jones debut YA novel is a flabby thriller with supernatural overtones that revolves around a love triangle between Poppy, Tariq and Michael that’s skewered too much in one direction. Ultimately it’s a book that doesn’t know what it wants to be and Poppy doesn’t convince in the slightest as a detective, driven by blind suspicions unsupported by evidence and blundering along from one discovery into another. I enjoyed the pagan elements, which are portrayed sympathetically but the supporting characters are little more than cyphers and the revelation of the killer wasn’t really supported by the earlier story. I doubt that I’ll be checking out the rest of this series.
DEAD JEALOUS was released in the United Kingdom on 4th July 2013. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the free copy of this book.
