Review: The Next Time You See Me by Holly Goddard Jones

The Next Time You See Me

by Holly Goddard Jones

Publisher: Touchstone 

Pages: 384 

Format: book 

Buy the Book: Amazon  

Goodreads:  Thirteen-year-old Emily Houchens doesn’t have many friends. She finds more comfort playing make-believe in the woods near her house in Roma, Kentucky, than with her classmates, who find her strange and awkward. When she happens upon a dead body hidden in the woods one day, she decides not to tell anyone about her discovery—a choice that begins to haunt her.

Susanna Mitchell has always been a good girl, the dutiful daughter and wife. While her older sister Ronnie trolled bars for men and often drove home at sunrise, Susanna kept a neat house, a respectable job, a young daughter. But when Ronnie goes missing, and Susanna realizes that she’s the only person in Roma who truly cares about her sister’s fate, she starts to question her quiet life and its value.

Kritters Thoughts:  Quite a mystery that makes you keep putting puzzle pieces together bit by bit until the very end and everyone in this small is interconnected by the drama that occurs in one way or another.  Susanna Mitchell is a wife, mother and a teacher at the local middle school, her husband is the band director at the high school, so you could define them as the All-American couple with their daughter completing the equation.  When her eccentric sister goes missing, she must try to keep her cool.     

There were definitely some twists and turns, with most of them coming from left field, but by the time the whole puzzle took shape, I was ready for the mystery to be solved.  There were definitely some parts that moved a little slow and I wanted the pace to increase to the climax where the reader finds out who really did the deed.  Of course, I will not share who the criminal ends up being - but I was pleased with the character and the reveal, it was definitely interesting.  

For fans of the mystery/suspense genre, I think this is a good book and definitely an author that I will be keeping my eyes on - I want to see what she has next up her sleeve!

Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Simon and Schuster.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.