Review: Orchids and Stone by Lisa Preston

Orchids and Stone

by Lisa Preston

Publisher: Thomas Mercer

Pages: 322

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  They’re trying to take me. Help! Help me, please.

Daphne Mayfield sought a moment of quiet in a park—a break from city life, a tense relationship, and chronic overwork—but then an elderly woman makes a desperate plea. Daphne is reluctant to get involved when she’s not sure what’s happening, but she wants to help the stranger. Is the rambling old lady the victim of a crime or a victim of dementia?

As her unease grows, Daphne can’t let go of the encounter. No matter what her boyfriend or her friends say. No matter what the retired homicide detective warns. Though she knows she’s meddling in other people’s lives, her instincts scream that the danger is real.

With each increasingly bold intervention, Daphne involves herself in someone else’s crisis until she’s in too deep to turn back. She’s not just fighting for a stranger’s life…she’s fighting for her own.

Kritters Thoughts:  Daphne is still recovering from big things that happened in her past - her sister was murdered and it goes unsolved and her dad commits suicide.  She is now living with a boyfriend and his two kids and thinks her life is going in the right direction.  She is walking their dog one evening and in a park she hears a women yelling that she was basically being kidnapped.

Daphne remembers her father saying many times that he wished someone had spoken up when her sister was kidnapped and murdered, thinking that if a bystander had said something maybe she would be alive or the murder would be solved.  With that in the back of her mind, I understood why she was pursuing this and really inserting herself in this old woman's life.  

At the same time that I say all of that, I thought this book was just odd.  While the pacing was great, it moved and was hard to put down.  I didn't enjoy the plot.  Her boyfriend kept harping against inserting herself in the situation and her best friend was on the fence and the police didn't seem legitimately helpful - it was just odd.  

I wouldn't rule out this author and would read something else by her as I think I liked her writing style, but for me this plot/story didn't work.


Rating: enjoyable, but didn't leave me wanting more

Ebook 2016 Challenge:  9 out of 50

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Little Bird Publicity.  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.