Nov 5, 2017

Bombshell by Pamela Fagan Hutchins REVIEW + GIVEAWAY

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Genre: Romantic Mystery / R-Rated

Publisher: SkipJack Publishing

Date of Publication: July 11, 2017

Number of Pages: 236

Temp worker by day, lounge singer by night, single mom Ava is having a hard time breaking up with her long-distance boyfriend and making it without the support of her parents on the island of St. Marcos. Things improve dramatically when she lands a too-good-to-be-true job at a virtual currency exchange, where she meets a seriously sexy man, and goes to work for a boss so incredible he sponsors her on a trip to New York to record a demo. But when Ava stumbles across the raped and murdered body of a young woman, she recognizes her from a shared trauma back in their school days. Ava is devastated and throws herself into avenging the girl's death. From that moment on, it’s one bombshell after another, going off closer and closer to Ava and the people she cares about most.

I do love a strong, independent woman and main character Ava embodies these traits and is someone who makes life work for her. She might have been unlucky in some of her quests, as she wound up on the scene of crimes more often than not, but she handled her situations with strength and passion.

Bombshell has strong and intriguing plot points. A few seem only slightly introduced and didn't entirely play out, which leaves an opening to go further in depth in the next books in the series, Stunner and Knockout. At times, these new elements are a distraction and I wish there had been more focus on the main mystery of Bombshell. All that time spent on other elements makes it feel like the reveal and finale of Bombshell are squeezed in, rushed, and not as epic as they could have been.

The underlying message of Bombshell pulls at my heartstrings and is my favorite part of this story. There are hints as to brutal events of Ava's childhood which even as an adult, make her feel beaten down and nothing more than a dumb island girl. Everything she does shows her struggle to prove her worth to herself and the world. One quote at the ending perfectly wraps-up Ava's healing process when a stern, loving woman says, "It's not you fault. What a bad man do not you fault. You hear me?"

Bombshell is the ninth book in the What Doesn't Kill You series, and it's the first I have read and I felt like I was missing out and couldn't get in sync with the speed of this story in relation to the other prior stories. I would not recommend this as a stand alone, but after reading Bombshell, I would be interested in going back and learning more about all these characters. The book is categorized as R-Rated, and that warning should not be taken lightly. This story contains vulgar, raw, gritty sexual and sexually abusive moments that are not sugarcoated.

Despite my jumping in so late in the series, Bombshell was on its way to being 4 or maybe even 5 stars. Everything was lining up very well, and it was a page turner, but then it flatlined at the end by leaving too many things unfinished. Some readers do fine with that kind of ending, knowing that there are two more Ava books coming. But for me, it just took the wind out of the sails.

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes overly long e-mails, award-winning and best-selling romantic mysteries, and hilarious nonfiction from deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and way up in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming.

Her What Doesn’t Kill You romantic mystery series is Janet Evanovich meets Sandra Brown and a smidge of Alice Hoffman's practical magic, featuring a revolving lineup of interrelated female amateur sleuths. She is passionate about great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes with her hunky husband and pack of rescue dogs, riding her gigantic horses, experimenting with her Keurig, and traveling in the Bookmobile.