ARC Review | Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker

Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker
Mystery, Thriller
Publication Date | August 8th, 2017
ARC from Netgalley

| Book Review |

This book has helped me to realize that psychological thrillers are something I like in theory, but rarely do they play out well on the page. The story inevitably reaches a point where I feel things are too incredible to be real, and it falls short. I think that this may be the one area where Hollywood trumps Bookville for me. These types of stories lend themselves better to screen than they do to page. Or maybe I’m just reading the wrong ones.

Emma in the Night was an interesting read, and I think it does better than most in maintaining the integrity of the story until the end. But there were parts of it that were predictable, and I found the doctor from the FBI who was working the case to be more interesting than anyone in the Tanner/Martin clan who were supposed to be the center of the plot. Parts of Emma in the Night read more like a case study than an actual story, and while those were the highlights of the book for me, it was a bit jarring when we returned to ‘story,’ and I just didn’t enjoy those parts as much, making the tempo of the story off. There was a definite Mommy Dearest feel here. It was disturbing and felt like a train wreck I couldn’t look away from. I felt for the children in this story, and I was frustrated that the adults who could have stepped up for them never did. I’m not going to say anything more for fear of spoiling it for other readers, but I’ll just say while Emma in the Night was entertaining enough, it just didn’t blow me away.

| Rating |