A Madness of Sunshine

Atmospherically, I can understand the comparison to Jane Harper; but the clunky writing and two-dimensional characters prevented me from being sucked into Nalini Singh's A Madness of Sunshine. The inhabitants of Golden Cove are cardboard cutouts and it seems like there are no good men in this place - almost all of them are given shady pasts or are of questionable character, and there's even a two-for-one deal on psychopaths.

Singh does a good job of creating small-town-New-Zealand ambiance and the ominous feeling of living so close to a harsh and unforgiving wilderness in a remote location. Unfortunately, I just didn't care about any of the people she wrote into the setting.

2.5 stars

I listened to the audiobook of this. I was kind of thrown off by the accent at first just because I wasn't expecting it but that really wasn't a problem.
I was drawn in from the very beginning. The suspense of whodunit had me wanting to keep reading. However, the main character Ana was a total bitch to the cop for no reason. In her inner monologue she even says that he doesn't deserve her anger but that doesn't stop her. Add on to that the romance between them. While there was definitely a connection between them if felt weird and wrong. I mean they are in the middle of a missing persons case and yet both of them feel like the other has lit a fire under their skin that they haven't felt in a long time. The timing just seemed off. I need to say that the romance is just a small part of the story and y'all know I love my romance so it's hard to say I would have preferred this without the romance aspect.

There were so many characters that were introduced that I had trouble keeping up with who was who. Especially because several of the characters just had small little parts.

The big reveal felt rushed and way to easy. And at one instance I was asking myself how this person had all of a sudden became a suspect. Basically all I can say is that I was into it enough to want to find out the whodunit but I didn't really care for any of the characters.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

While I enjoyed this book, I can't say I was fully invested. The pages flew by, but I didn't completely care about the outcome? It was a weird feeling to say the least.

And yet, the mystery had me mostly in the dark and the different characters with their different perspectives did add to the story. The writing is flawless and it was interesting reading a book set in a different country (this took me a while to get, but totally made sense).

Do I recommend this one? If you like mysteries, suspense, romantic suspense – this is totally a book you should pick up.

Very good. Very satisfying. Nice twist at the end.