Review: The Woman in the Water by Kelly Heard

The Woman in the Water

by Kelly Heard

Publisher: Bookouture

Pages: 345

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  My sister Holly is dead.

I still can’t bring myself to say those words out loud. Even as I catch my first glimpse of sunlight on the lake, as I approach the small town where we grew up. I promised myself I would never go back there. That it would be safer for us both if I stayed away forever…

But Holly’s little girls need me. They have no-one else. And they might be in danger.

Because I know Holly’s death wasn’t an accident.

She didn’t slip and drown out by the old boardwalk, surrounded by trees and dark water. She would never have gone there, if she had a choice.

Someone has done this to keep her silent.

If whoever killed Holly knows my secret too, then I need to find them before they find me.

Otherwise, I’ll be next.

Kritters Thoughts:  A woman is found dead in the water and this water has a past in this small town to be a haunted place.  The younger sister of the deceased heads back home to get the details of her death and check on her daughters and maybe even confront some things from the past.  

First, let me say I read this book during a very busy week in my personal life and could only read it in bits and pieces which is not typically how my reading time goes. For me the simple fact that this book had a lot of short chapters made me distracted and created too many easy breaks and distractions.  I think these things skewed my reading and I hope to read Kelly Heard again and be able to be pulled in for longer reading situations.  

Being one half of a sister sibling relationship and having a sister who has kids that were close to Holly's kids ages, it made for a few times where the book felt a little too close to home!  When Felicity arrives back home and has to confront secrets of the past and the death of her sister, I was personally invested and the way the author built the sisters and the characters that surrounded was the main driver that kept me reading through all my personal crazy!  I wanted to know the stories from the past and the present and find out how the sisters ended up estranged and then how Felicity was going to solve all the things.  

For me the characters were the focus of this story and the plot was enough to support these great characters and I know for me it had a few moments where the pacing fell off, but I can also see that it could have been my own personal things in the way of my reading experience.  

This was my second Kelly Heard read and I would love to read more of her backlist and the ones to come.

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

Ebook 2021 Challenge: 90 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Bookouture.  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.