Score: 2.5/5 Bookmarks

Thank you to Minotaur Books for sending me a free review copy of Thin Ice by Paige Shelton.

I really wanted to like this book, I really did. It had a female lead, a big Alaska setting, and multiple mysteries to be solved. But that ended up being the main problem…there were too many mysteries to solve, and they didn’t really feel connected in a cohesive way.

Lately I’ve read a lot of books that have been late in a series, the second or even the fifteenth book and I’ve marveled at how they were written in a way that made me want to read the books that had gone before, but it wasn’t necessary. They caught me up and I was able to enjoy the book as a stand-alone story. This book was the opposite. It is the first in the Alaska Wild Mysteries series, but it felt like I’d jumped straight into the second or third book and there was much more explaining that needed to happen.

The backstory for why our lead character had fled her life and gone to Alaska didn’t make a lot of sense to me and definitely felt like it should have been it’s own book. It also didn’t really seem to have anything to do with the mystery that she was now uncovering in Alaska.

And to top it off, I found it very strange that our lead was previously an unskilled admin assistant in a police station, then become a best-selling author overnight, then escaped to Alaska and started working as an investigative journalist and helping the police department solve crimes. It was all a bit too much for me.

It still got two and a half stars from me though because there were parts that kept me guessing and made me want to know more, and I finished the book so it can’t have been THAT bad I suppose.

This is by no means the author’s first book, which surprised me to learn, because it felt more like a debut. I think she’s actually written over 20 other books!

If you’d like to give it a go (maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did) you can grab your own copy by clicking the button below.

Synopsis:

First in a new series set in Alaska from beloved author Paige Shelton, Thin Ice will chill your bones.

Beth Rivers is on the run – she’s doing the only thing she could think of to keep herself safe. Known to the world as thriller author Elizabeth Fairchild, she had become the subject of a fanatic’s obsession. After being held in a van for three days by her kidnapper, Levi Brooks, Beth managed to escape, and until he is captured, she's got to get away. Cold and remote, Alaska seems tailor-made for her to hideout.

Beth’s new home in Alaska is sparsely populated with people who all seem to be running or hiding from something, and though she accidentally booked a room at a halfway house, she feels safer than she’s felt since Levi took her. That is, until she’s told about a local death that’s a suspected murder. Could the death of Linda Rafferty have anything to do with her horror at the hands of Levi Brooks?

As Beth navigates her way through the wilds of her new home, her memories of her time in the van are coming back, replaying the terror and the fear—and threatening to keep her from healing, from reclaiming her old life again. Can she get back to normal, will she ever truly feel safe, and can she help solve the local mystery, if only so she doesn’t have to think about her own?