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The Lonely Hearts Crime Club

I obtained a copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley.  The Lonely Hearts Crime Club is scheduled to be released April 16th, 2019 by Blackbird Digital Books.
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 Synopsis (from Goodreads):

 An elderly resident of an inner-city tower block is brutally attacked and left for dead. Her neighbours, a pregnant alcoholic, a vulnerable youth, a failed actress and a cameraman with a dark secret, are thrown together in their search for answers. Misfits and loners, they are forced to confront uncomfortable realities about themselves and each other, as their investigation leads them towards the shocking finale. 

 The cast of characters for this book were very interesting in the fact that all of them are severely flawed.  When combined they formed a group of misfits similar to those of The Breakfast Club or The Sandlot.  Each person brought something different to the "team."  The main characters are listed below
  • Ella-pregnant, 3rd trimester, recovering alcoholic, on her own
  • Ethan-film maker, orphan, history of anger and hurt
  • Birdie-failed actress, broke/no job, abandoned by only family member (daughter)
  • William-autistic, first time living alone as an adult
  • Mr. Jenkins-angry caretaker
  • Ted-social worker for Ella, previous social worker for Aggie (still visits her)
  • Christine-Aggie's sister
  • Aggie-Victim, mentally handicapped, sweet towards everyone
Once Aggie is attacked, Ella decides to pair with Ethan to find the attacker.  Birdie and William eventually join the team in an attempt to find anyone who would have bad feelings towards Aggie.  This leads them to discover a deep family secret covered up by Christine AND Ted.  The end of the book is truly shocking, and is one ending I never saw coming.

I enjoyed this book.  The characters were well developed.  The emotions of the different characters were accurate, and I found myself rooting for them to find the attacker.  There is a bit of a love connection between Ethan and Ella, and I ended up wanting them to end up together to form a happy family.  The family secret was truly disturbing and quite sad.  This book pulled at my heartstrings.  I went from pity for the family secret to anger and shock upon finding out who attacked Aggie.  Overall, this was a fast but great read.  I can't wait until this is released to see how others felt reading it.  It's going to be very hard to keep the family secret to myself until then! 💙

🌟🌟🌟🌟/5 Stars
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Comments

  1. Stephanie ZiaApril 4, 2019 at 7:39 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Stephanie ZiaApril 4, 2019 at 7:42 AM

    Hi Kelli Ann, Thank you for this wonderfully detailed, perceptive review. We so appreciate it. Love, Stephanie, Tanya's editor

    ReplyDelete

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