There legit didn’t seem to be anything there between Rachel and Luc…I’m thinking if there’s an affair there is heat…passion. At 31, she’s been raised to keep magic secret; her sole contact with other witches is a small group she sees every three months, and she can't even text with them in between, as the group's leader thinks having too much magic in one place will draw unwanted attention. You know, the big twist, the one where every blurb on the cover and every early review gives you a heads up, and perhaps that was part of the issue here for me. Another psychotherapist agrees to change a patient's prescription med mix on a whim, and overnight, without any plan for a gradual step-down or other concern for patient impact.

The world Mandanna has created is exceedingly cozy and heartfelt, full of people bursting with love who have trouble expressing it due to trauma in their pasts. I wanted to see if the magic of the first time is still there or if, now knowing the twists, the story would feel lesser than. Gabriel was the second man to condemn Alicia to death, which was more than what she could bear—which is why she killed Gabriel. Finally, despite the steadily moving pace of the book, it takes a while to get into the meat of the book.So I inadvertently committed the biggest book faux-paus ever and ruined a fantastic book for a friend.

Michaelides wastes time on sub-plots that are irrelevant, introduces red herring characters with no subtlety so the reader is merely annoyed. However since Goodreads allows us to express and respect our different opinions I don't see any harm in being honest.It's a fast-paced ride with short punchy chapters (oh, how easy it is to think "just one more chapter"). Alan convinces Sam not to bury Elias' body, but to leave it somewhere it will be found, as that is the nicer thing to do for Elias' relatives. I just happened to see it hanging around in the new releases, took a quick peek, and thought-- why not? But I think that’s why I was impressed by the basic plot of this book, I think he did a good job of making things come together in a surprising way that’s well set-up…even if some of the other aspects of the book weren’t perfect. She titled it Alcestis, named after a heroine in Greek mythology who sacrifices her life to save her husband.

The use of the diary entries, paired with Theo's investigations, made for a perfectly-paced reveal in my opinion!

She tells us she is very observant, that she has to be as a doctor, but she doesn’t seem to notice much of anything.

But with the clock ticking until an upcoming visit from a lawyer who's suspicious about the “unconventional household” and the witch rules Mika’s been raised with ringing in her ears, is this all just a bomb waiting to explode? This is all told from Rachel’s first person perspective (past tense, thankfully) and initially I had a lot of sympathy for her, but this dwindled as she makes excuses for her awful adult daughter’s selfishness and rudeness, her husband’s neglect and her own lust-confused-with-love making her sure Luc must be innocent. He goes through his various family problems that stem from his son being an orthodox Jew with imaginary Charlie. His dramatic monologues, constant whinging, and complete lack of awareness (I've said it before this man is thick) made him into a really unbelievable character. You say that Theo had to kill Alicia because he realized she recognized him as the man who entered her house wearing a mask.It's so darn satisfying to read such a compulsively addicting story, with twists done right that left me absolutely speechless. Rachel is a doctor who lives in Salisbury, her home life is lacking and she becomes entangled in an unethical relationship with a patient, Luc. It started strong and kept my attention in the beginning, but then I got lost a bit with the characters, none of which I was invested in, and that combined with the very slow burn of a pace this was just too much on the light side of a mystery for me. but later, alicia said in her last entry, that after theo pulled the trigger alicia noticed she’s still alive and “theo was still there-pointing the gun to the ceiling. The murder mystery wasn’t totally convincing, and I guessed who was behind it and some of the reasons why, but probably only because I read too many thrillers.