Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A sharply-paced YA thriller that will quickly get your heart pounding!
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A sharply-paced YA thriller that will quickly get your heart pounding!
Pretty Dead Queens is not your typical high school drama, though there is plenty of that to satisfy. It's a sharply-paced thriller that will quickly get your heart pounding! There are many engaging characters, a realistic high school setting, and a good murder mystery to unravel.
Cecelia Ellis is a likable and sympathetic heroine. She's just lost her mother, reunited with her intimidating and somewhat off-putting grandmother, left behind the only home she's ever known, and now faces being the new girl during her senior year at a school where everyone else grew up together. She has no emotional support system, so it's pretty remarkable how well she handles everything thrown at her. It also makes her reactions later in the story so much more understandable. The cast of supporting characters is an interesting mix of personalities and problems, with all the teenage angst one could expect in a high-school-based story. The friends all have their secrets, and you suspect from the start that one of them is going to die. But who?The story builds slowly and steadily. Cecelia does a pretty decent investigation on her own, with help from the friends' group at times. But the story picks up at a blazing pace when she realizes the shocking truth about why the homecoming queen was murdered. The resolution is riveting!
With its engaging heroine, realistic setting, and pulse-pounding action, I recommend PRETTY DEAD QUEENS to readers of YA mysteries and thrillers who would enjoy a plot involving a cold case murder, a possible copycat killer, a high school setting, or a northern California coastal setting.I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the author or publisher through NetGalley and TBR and Beyond Book Tours.
