Review: The Last Beach Town by Deb Richardson-Moore

 

Genre: Thriller/Suspense

Description:

“Sloane Cheney has no intention of ever returning to the South Carolina island town where she grew up. She enjoys her life in the big city and teaching at the college there. The thought of revisiting the place where her mother deserted her family is too painful.

But when Aunt Millicent, town matriarch and owner of the family’s beachfront property, is murdered, Sloane must go back to sign off on the sale of the grand family home to developers. She soon finds that old friendships have shifted, as townspeople disagree over the development that would reshape their sleepy village. Sloane is directly in the line of fire, under suspicion by the police chief because of her inheritance and by her former neighbors who question her long absence.

With family members and old friends swirling treacherously around her, Sloane doesn’t know who to trust, especially after a nearly fatal accident in the beach house. She digs into her family’s history, uncovering new information about her mother’s disappearance. What she discovers raises questions: Was her aunt’s murder a simple case of greed? Or was it related to her mother’s long-ago vanishing?”

Author:

“Deb Richardson-Moore has worked as an award-winning newspaper journalist and as a pastor to homeless congregants. Her murder mysteries fall somewhere between cozies and gritty psychological thrillers and have twice been named finalists in Killer Nashville competitions.

Deb and her husband live in upstate South Carolina, where she enjoys gardening, volunteering, public speaking, and watching TV thrillers adapted from favorite books. She travels frequently to the beach.”

For more, check out her website.

Appraisal:

The dynamics that sometimes happen in small groups, whether family members or residents of a small town, can make for some interesting and entertaining stories. It can even be a bit of a mystery at times. We’ve definitely got all of that at work in this story. It seemed like just when I thought I might have a handle on how things were going to shake out and what the answer to the latest mystery was, that something else would happen or come to light making me question it. If you like suspense, this story is great read.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on an advanced reader copy and thus I can’t gauge the final product in this area.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words