3.5/5
First off, I loved the fact that Trace of Evil by Alice Blanchard is a mix of family drama, police procedural, and mystery. This is one of the things that kept my attention and kept me reading, and I really liked the way Blanchard blended them all together. This is book one of a series and I can definitely tell as the author paid a lot of attention to Natalie's relationships with other people, her family, and her past. This made the book a pretty slow burn with not quite as much action as I was hoping for. I do love getting character's backstories especially for a series, but I would have loved more of the mystery with backstory added in a bit less.
There is something about this book that I can't quite put my finger on, but it made me not love it. The synopsis is incredible, and I was hoping to get the same out of reading it but something about the execution of the story was a little off for me. The end was shocking but not in a way that I was like WHAT, although sometimes that is a good thing! Trace of Evil had a couple of different mysteries going on which I liked, and although I didn't necessarily love Blanchard's writing style, it was still engaging and good enough to keep me reading. I listened to the audiobook which was good for the slow burn, but I can't say I liked the narrator all that much. I also noticed that Laura Nichol has only narrated a total of three books so I'm not sure what's going on there either. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea why I didn't love her narration, so I would still recommend checking it out if you like audio.
Even though Trace of Evil was a bit of a miss for me, I am moving on to the second book in the series and will go from there. This book also had a surprising amount of witchcraft in it which I didn't mind, but I would have loved it if it had been touched on even more. I thought the addition of it made things confusing at times, and I think it should have been explained a bit more. I liked Natalie a lot though and I am interested to see what she gets up to in the next book!
First off, I loved the fact that Trace of Evil by Alice Blanchard is a mix of family drama, police procedural, and mystery. This is one of the things that kept my attention and kept me reading, and I really liked the way Blanchard blended them all together. This is book one of a series and I can definitely tell as the author paid a lot of attention to Natalie's relationships with other people, her family, and her past. This made the book a pretty slow burn with not quite as much action as I was hoping for. I do love getting character's backstories especially for a series, but I would have loved more of the mystery with backstory added in a bit less.
There is something about this book that I can't quite put my finger on, but it made me not love it. The synopsis is incredible, and I was hoping to get the same out of reading it but something about the execution of the story was a little off for me. The end was shocking but not in a way that I was like WHAT, although sometimes that is a good thing! Trace of Evil had a couple of different mysteries going on which I liked, and although I didn't necessarily love Blanchard's writing style, it was still engaging and good enough to keep me reading. I listened to the audiobook which was good for the slow burn, but I can't say I liked the narrator all that much. I also noticed that Laura Nichol has only narrated a total of three books so I'm not sure what's going on there either. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea why I didn't love her narration, so I would still recommend checking it out if you like audio.
Even though Trace of Evil was a bit of a miss for me, I am moving on to the second book in the series and will go from there. This book also had a surprising amount of witchcraft in it which I didn't mind, but I would have loved it if it had been touched on even more. I thought the addition of it made things confusing at times, and I think it should have been explained a bit more. I liked Natalie a lot though and I am interested to see what she gets up to in the next book!