Forgive Me Not By Lacynda Mathes, A Book Review

Forgive Me Not is a murder mystery that goes down such and winding, twisting path, I had a hard time following it. That’s what you want, though, right? I thought I had it figured out, but the story kept me going to find out I didn’t have a clue. I guessed a few times at the conclusion, actually, but I was wrong each time.

Deb is a mother, a divorcee, and a girlfriend, asking herself if she should be, questioning who she is, and what kind of person she has become. She is better friends with her ex-husband now than she was when they were married. And she likes his new wife and is happy for him. She has what appears to be a tumultuous relationship with her mother and questions things, but pushes those thoughts to herself or her mother being irrational, so it’s better to just leave things alone. Not rock the boat, so to speak.

There wasn’t enough reasonable thought as to who would be trying to hurt her, or her mother, or her ex-husband's new wife, Miranda. Trying to figure that out was perplexing for her. In Deb's search and the state police, Gavin's search, she never expected to hear some truths about her family. Reading it felt like bouncing off a brick wall. So unexpected.

The writing style was short sentences, to the point, and directed you to the main character's thoughts and intentions without delving too deep. I don’t know if that was intentional to keep you guessing what happened and who did it, or not. It worked, though. Unfortunately for me, I did have trouble keeping all the characters straight. There are quite a few of them in the whole story, so I had to slow down in my reading to get it right, only so I could hopefully figure out who did it and why.

For a murder mystery, it was compelling. The characters were interesting, and kept you wondering about their full story, always wanting to know more so you had more ammunition for your own conclusion. Unfortunately, I didn’t solve it correctly before the author did.

Overall, it was a good story with good pacing for a quick read with only 190 pages. If you like murder mysteries, with a lot of characters to sort through to determine who did it and why, you will like this book. I think the story could have been enhanced and enriched with heightened anticipation and discovery had the characters been more developed and explored. That may have made the character sort and understanding a little easier.  For that reason, I gave this book a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.