First of all, just a few things I want to share. Chasing down some of this information is hard, and I really hope that some day someone will appreciate this.... and also, sorry I keep giving you reviews for 3 star books, but there the ones that have the best reviews so far. Enjoy another review.
Title: Chasing Smoke
Author: K.A. Mitchell
Stars: 3/5
More info: Goodreads.com
Buy it!: Barnes and noble *, Borders*, Amazon*, Samhain Publishing
*=Also available in paperback
Blurb: An old mystery brought them together. Solving it could tear them apart.
In the best of times, Daniel Gardner hates visiting his family. With his boyfriend pressuring him for a mortgage-serious commitment, Christmas in Easton, PA sounds, for once, like a welcome escape. His old house holds more than memories of a miserable adolescence, though. It has Trey Eriksson.
At seventeen, Trey was taken in by the wealthy Gardner family after his father was jailed for his mother’s murder. Until he left for the Army, he fought a double-edged battle—for proof of his father’s innocence and against his attraction to Daniel.
Fifteen years later, things haven’t changed. Trey is still looking for the real killer. And Daniel has never forgotten how Trey used to sneak into his room at night.
Now new clues to the murder are resurfacing—and so is Trey and Daniel’s sexual chemistry. Except this time, Trey has come to terms with his orientation.
But their connection may not be enough to overcome the mistakes of the past. Not while a murderer still walks free…
My Thoughts: After reading four other books by K.A. Mitchell, I felt extremely excited to read this novel. I had absolutely loved her Florida series and Hot Ticket: A Serving Love Story was probably my favorite short story I've read in a while. I don't feel like my expectations were meet for this book though.
Fist off I'll start by saying I felt every character I read about deserved to be slapped, with the exception of the children briefly mentioned in the beginning. They were all full of them selves and worried about mainly themselves. They weren't true to anyone else and the main characters hardly ever seemed to think about what the other would actually do or how they would respond. Their so certain of things that we as a reader know are wrong. They all have their problems, and rightfully so. But the problems are over simplified and over exaggerated.
Second, The word choices. At times I felt like the phrasing of a sentence was just wrong or that what a character was saying was awkward. Some parts seemed lacking of emotion or action when they were needed and others needed to calm down a bit.
Third, The 'case'. As much as I loved the idea, I hated it at the same time. Between all their emotions it got covered and wasn't as big a part of the novel as it needed to be. After spending so much time looking over one piece of evidence, the rest of the investigation felt extremely rushed.
Besides that there was the length. This book was just simply too long and drawn out for what I felt I got out of it.
This book wasn't all horrible though. The characters are emotional and there's some good tension going on between them springing from deep routed issues from each of their pasts. Mitchell is great at writing their intimate moments, though I do feel some from her other book would easily surpass.
One last thing, I felt kind of disappointed that handcuffs were not used inappropriately at any point in this novel. There was the set up and hint that it was going to be there, but never actually happens. I would have loved to read how Mitchell would portray a scene like that.
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