Engaging story with complex characters – all sprinkled with a little dose of what it’s like to be Black in America. Perfect for fans of Alyssa Cole’s When No one Is Watching and Jesse Sutanto’s You Will Never Be Me. 

I enjoyed this!

 

Energy: Focused. Restless. Wary. 

Scene: 🇺🇸 Set at an Airbnb and hotels in Jersey City, NJ

Perspective: Our MC is tagging along with their partner who is travelling for work in NYC at a finance firm. 

 

🐕 Howls: Sometimes spinning wheels plotwise. 
🐩 Tail Wags: The pacing. The story and writing style. Bree. Immersive audiobook. 

🤔 Random Thoughts:

I predicted some of the twists but I was invested in Bree and what would happen to her so it never ruined the story for me. 

I love the choice to keep unreliable narrator tropes out of this. It made it much more suspenseful. 

The ending is open and abrupt (I liked it). There wasn’t much more to say, and the epilogue was almost acknowledging what would occur next, and giving us a taste.

 

🤓 Reader Role: Hanging out with our MC. She’s narrating what she’s doing and experiencing, telling us straight up what her motivations are and why. 

🗺️ World-Building: Cinematic and sensory. Can see the reactions and body language of characters. Not overly detailed but easy to imagine. Real locations given so you can follow along on Google Earth and explore! 

🔥 Fuel: Character evolution and escalating stakes. Who killed the woman in the Airbnb? Where is Bree’s partner? Did he do it or is he a victim too? Will the police believe Bree? 

📖 Cred: Realistic

 

Train tracks. PATH announcements. Traffic. YouTube channels. Instagram stories. Phone haptics. Elevator dings. Manhattan skyline. Hotel lobby. 

 

Content Heads-Up: Racism (prejudice, systemic, bias, assumption). Police (incompetence, bias). Murder. Blood. Missing person. Loss of romantic partner. False accusation. Loss of parent (as child). Masking stage of COVID-19 (brief mentions; no lockdowns). Betrayal. Domestic abuse/controlling spouse (recall; off page). 

 

Rep: Black and White Americans. Cisgender. Heterosexual. 

 

📚 Format: Audible

 

Lost points for centering cryptocurrency as a plot device

    When Breanna, a woman of color, goes to an Airbnb in another state, where a white woman is missing, for a vacation with her boyfriend, Ty, she ends up finding a dead body and Ty is nowhere to be found. Internet sleuths are on the case, but that's not always a good thing, especially when you have a Black man suspected of killing a white woman, and a Black woman is the only one left to tell the tale.
 
     I enjoyed the book a lot. It had a great fast pace. But I did figure out one of the mysteries early, though others were harder for me to figure out. The book was much better than if it had been a white couple at the Airbnb, the racial elements added additional tension and a more complex narrative.
    While I'm a consumer of things like true crime books and podcasts, I am disgusted by murder tourism and everyone thinking they can be a detective with zero training. I think civilians can do certain things like going through documents to find things and then bring them to the attention of qualified people. We shouldn't be confronting people we suspect of crimes or bombing their social media with hate before even the police have announced the criminal much less, they are convicted. I think this book tackled those topics well.
 
 Narrator Rating: 4.75 stars
  The narrator did an excellent job! I wish there'd been more tonal shifts for different characters when they talked.