Friday, June 21, 2019

I'll Never Tell by Catherine McKenzie



What happened to Amanda Holmes?
Twenty years ago, she was found bludgeoned in a rowboat at the MacAllister family’s Camp Macaw. No one was ever charged with the crime.
Now, after their parents’ sudden deaths, the MacAllister siblings return to camp to read the will and decide what to do with the prime real estate the camp occupies. Ryan needs to sell. Margaux hasn’t made up her mind. Mary believes in leaving well enough alone. Kate and Liddie—the twins—have opposing views. And Sean Booth, the groundskeeper, just hopes he still has a home when all is said and done.
But it’s more complicated than a simple vote. The will stipulates that until they unravel the mystery of what happened to Amanda, they can’t settle the estate. Any one of them could have done it, and each one is holding a piece of the puzzle. Will they work together to finally discover the truth, or will their secrets finally tear the family apart? -catherinemckenzie.com

This review is going (or went) live at 11:54AM the official start of Summer for those in New York and  in the Eastern Time Zone. When I was working at Borders we were inundated weekly during the summer with busloads of campers on a rainy day or counselors on their nights off. My knowledge of summer camp comes from a five day stint at a cheerleading camp and the vast amount of movies/TV shows/books about summer camp. I’m an indoor cat so I believe going to camp vicariously through fiction is the only way I could truly enjoy it.

Camp Macaw is both an idyllic camp with lots of recreational activities for the kids but it’s also a place of tragedy. Not only was Amanda Holmes bludgeoned there and the mystery never solved; everyone in the MacAllister family was hiding something from each other when they should’ve been coming together. Told from the various points of view of the now adult MacAllister children and former camper Sean and Amanda’s spirit, I’ll Never Tell is both an absorbing look at family dynamics and a complex mystery. Sometimes when an author uses multiple POVs, it can get confusing but that's not the case here as every character's voice is unique, multi-faceted and fully developed.  Everyone is a believable suspect at one point or another in this book. The numerous twists and turns kept me guessing until the very end.

Definitely add I’ll Never Tell by Catherine McKenzie to your Summer Reading list.  I got my copy through my Kindle Unlimited subscription.  You can find it there or at your favorite local or online bookseller.

🌟🌟🌟🌟/5



No comments: