Raven Lane by Amber Cowie

Raven Lane

by Amber Cowie

Kindle Edition, 288 pages

Published November 12th 2019 by Lake Union Publishing

Goodreads synopsis:

The truth can bring out the worst in the best of friends.

Esme and Benedict Werner have an idyllic life in a tight-knit community until an accident in their cul-de-sac ends in the tragic sudden death of one of their dearest neighbors. After vindicating eyewitness accounts morph into contradictory memories, suspicion, and unaccountable accusations, Benedict is arrested. Esme’s life, too, is changed forever.

As the neighborhood largely turns against her and her family, Esme has time to think about her past and what to do next. Then her fellow residents start looking deeper, questioning one another, and themselves, about hidden lies and betrayals.

Esme has more than her share of secrets. And the consequences of what happened on that fateful late-summer evening on Raven Lane are far from over. When the mask of civility slips, can friends and neighbors recover from seeing the monstrous truths beneath?

***

3.5 Stars

I guess I would call this a thriller. Raven Lane is a sort of exclusive community where  you have to be somebody to get to live there. Esme and Benedict are both from the movie/acting area.  Esme had a tragic experience with a producer taking advantage of her and thus decided to not continue with her acting career. She is now a restaurant chef. When her husband leaves one day backing out of the driveway, he runs over the neighbor man, best selling author, Torn. This leaves the man injured but once he gets to the hospital he is DOA.

At first it seems like a simple accident and as they investigate more and more details of their past comes out and Benedict is charged with murder.

I really wanted to love this but I felt it was pretty slow. It took awhile to get past the accidental killing to the “maybe it was murder” decision. The ending was nice but I still had questions and I am not sure the idea of whodunit was ever really explained. I left with a question mark above my head.

I think the author could have taken out fifty pages of the first half and added the 50 pages in details to the last half. Great story. I was intrigued but I am not sure everyone will stick it out past the slow beginning. If you are reading this, don’t stop. Finish it. Don’t let the slow start keep you from experiencing the much more exciting ending.

I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.