Review: The Mourning Hours, Paula Treick DeBoard

*Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book on Netgalley from the publisher in return for an honest review*

Kirsten Hammarstrom hasn't been home to her tiny corner of rural Wisconsin in years-not since the mysterious disappearance of a local teenage girl rocked the town and shattered her family. Kirsten was just nine years old when Stacy Lemke went missing, and the last person to see her alive was her boyfriend, Johnny-the high school wrestling star and Kirsten's older brother. No one knows what to believe-not even those closest to Johnny-but the event unhinges the quiet farming community and pins Kirsten's family beneath the crushing weight of suspicion.
Now, years later, a new tragedy forces Kirsten and her siblings to return home, where they must confront the devastating event that shifted the trajectory of their lives.

Paula Treick DeBoard is a reader, writer and had various jobs in the field of public education. She earned a B.A. in English from Dordt College in 1998. In 2010, she graduated from the University of Southern Maine with an MFA degree in Creative Writing (Fiction).

The Mourning Hours is a real page turner playing on your emotions from the very start. As soon as Kirsten is pulled over by the cop afraid he will recognize her last name I could feel the burden she was carrying around. Soon the story goes back to the year Kirsten was 9 and all the bad things happen. The development in the story is done well and you get enough information to see how the family was before and how everything slowly falls apart. I really felt Kirsten growing up all of a sudden from being a child to understanding adult things. All the characters in the book react different to the situation and it is easy to feel sympathy for all of them though I did have some trouble with the reaction of Emily.
Somewhere during the story I did consider what really happened and though it was more of a feeling I was correct at that point. Still when the whole story developed and the truth was revealed I was not that surprised. The story was well written and the build up was done great. It was very exciting and I could not stop reading but I noticed that there was an emotional barrier. Some parts are pretty heartbreaking but it never really touched me in that way.

The Mourning Hours
Author: Paula Treick DeBoard
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Pages: 336
Format: eGalley
ISBN-10: 0778314979
ISBN-13: 9780778314974
Harlequin MIRA: eBook | Paperback

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