Review: Raveled, Anne McAneny

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

What’s a girl to do when her imprisoned brother begs her to delve into their father’s sixteen-year-old murder conviction? How about peel back the lies, upend the fairy tales, and roil the populace of Lavitte—a sweet apple of a town with a wormy, festering core? That’s what Allison Fennimore chooses. Despite her infamous surname and people’s wilted memories, this jaded cynic of a daughter sinks her teeth in and refuses to let go. She can practically taste the bitterness of that long-ago, twisted night when two teenagers died, linked to her father by bad luck and a few strands of rope.
Ignoring the dense local atmosphere where image trumps substance and lies become legend, Allison stirs the pot. The more layers she discards, the more elusive the truth becomes. And when a key source of information turns up dead, the dark edges of resentment coil in around her like a slowly tightening noose. As revelations get ugly, Allison may wish she’d never ventured toward the forbidden fruit of truth.

Anne McAneny honed her writing skills as a screenwriter for many years before turning to novels. Several of her screenplays became finalists in contests and still circulate through Hollywood on a regular basis. Her first novel, the humorous and heartening Chunneling Through Forty, became a top-selling e-book. Anne lives in Virginia with her family and several pets.

This book caught my attention due to the fact that the mystery solver was a normal person not the police or someone trained for the job. If the story is well written this usually ends up in a puzzle where I as reader can puzzle along and put clues together which I enjoy. My curiosity was triggered too by the promise of intrigue the synopsis promised.
The first 50 pages were hard to read. It i clear Allison is still angry by what happened and has a lot of questions. These feelings jump of the page and really rubbed off on me as reader. I got angry and upset and that is not a feeling I search for when reading a book. Still the story was developing in an interesting way and I could not stop reading. Eventually I realized too that that anger actually worked very well with the story. It made it easier to connect to Allison and understand her choices.
The story has several flashbacks in which the other people involved tell their side of the story. The transitions between the story of Allison now and the other people with their story from the past was not always fluent. Allison was in one situation and all of a sudden you were reading her dad's story. After Allison usually picked up some of the clues that I read in her dad's story but it took the puzzle from the story for me.
The characters all play their part in the story. As soon as they are introduced it is clear where they stand including matching characteristics. The only one I was in doubt about was Enzo which made for a nice "everything is possible with him" situation.
Raveled lived up to the expectation I had from the synopsis. There as a lot of intrigue and the local atmosphere enveloped me as reader. It was possible to puzzle along with the mystery, though some pieces were given away and there is a character for everyone to like, love or hate.

Raveled
Author: Anne McAneny
Publisher: Farrington Press
Pages: 332
Format: eGalley
ISBN-10: 098884690X
ISBN-13: 9780988846906

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