The Foxglove Killings - Tara Kelly

Title: The Foxglove Killings

Author: Tara Kelly

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Publication Date: September 1, 2015

Source: Netgalley

Wow.  Color me impressed with The Foxglove Killings by Tara Kelly.  It is full of mystery and suspense.  It will keep you on your toes guessing and drive you crazy trying to figure it all out.  Definitely a job well done.

The Foxglove Killings starts out with Nova and Alex walking through a park.  They assume that their walk is going to be like any other day with nothing eventful going on, but they are wrong.  They come across a mutilated deer.  The body parts spread all around, the head put up for display on the swings.  In the mouth of a deer Nova finds a Foxglove.  Very suspicious.

If the mutilated deer wasn't bad enough, another animal was found at house of local rich girl Gabi's house.  It too had a Foxglove in its mouth.

But it doesn't stop there.  Nova receives a strange letter from an anonymous person in a purple envelope.  And one of the rich girls visiting the town for the summer with her family goes missing.

No one knows who is to blame for the mutilations.  Nova has no idea who the letter is from.  Did Amber run away or did something worse happen?  And are all of these things connected?  If so, how?

Sounds like a thrilling story full of mystery and suspense to me.  Thankfully it doesn't disappoint at all.  It does start out a little slow in the beginning, but some where around 1/4th of the way in the story really picks up and gets juicy.  Things just keep happening.  One thing after another and you never know what is going to happen next.  It is quite a fantastic ride.

The Foxglove Killings is also filled with a lot of teenage angst.  

The big issue in this story is the rich tourist vs the somewhat poor locals.  The rich teenagers throw parties all the time and find as many ways as possible to torment the locals.  The locals aren't blameless though.  They do their fair share of starting problems too.

This leads me to the thing that bothered me the most about The Foxglove Killings.  All of the teenagers seemed so hard in this story.  Ready to throw down and fight it out at any disagreement that came there way.  Male or female, it didn't matter.  This was the way it seemed whether they were one of the rich tourists or one of the poor locals.  It felt a little unrealistic at some points and it got a little annoying.  It felt as though someone was always saying to someone that they should take their disagreement outside and have it out right then and there.  There are other ways to create tension between characters and I would have liked to see some more of those techniques used.

Tara Kelly did use a technique that I found really interesting though.  Every so often between chapters there was something that seemed like it was a diary or journal entry.  They were usually pretty short and they were filled with a lot of emotion.  However, you don't know who wrote them.  It helps increase the suspense of who is behind everything and what his/her motive is.

The Foxglove Killings has a lot of mystery and suspense and a little bit of romance.  It is a great read that you will not want to put down.

My Rating

4 out of 5 stars

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This review is based on an eARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley.