"Till Death" by Jennifer L. Armentrout. ©2017 William Morrow premium printing. 384 pages.
Quick Summary: Ten years ago Sasha Keeton survived known serial killer the Groom. Now she's ready to return he small West Virginia town she escaped all those years ago to help run the family inn. Coming home means she should be whole again--that is for the the missing piece. Things are not as they seem, women are starting to dissapear again, Cole Landis is ready to make up for not being there a decade ago, and someone is watching for Sasha to make a fatal mistake.
(This review has minor spoilers in it)
This is my third book I've read of Armentrout's and I'm super sad to say that I was not pleased with it. With that being said I will still read her other books and whatever she may write in the future. I would say this is an adult thriller/romance. I'm not much of a thriller genre person but if it's done right I enjoy it greatly. This was not the case with "Till Death". This book was almost 400 pages but it read like a 250ish page novel, this partly due to it's small size. I wanted so badly to like this book. I saw it recommended by my favorite booktuber Sasha Alsberg who the main character of this book is named after.
It just seemed like the plot or the character's really developed. The build to ending never really... built up. "Oh no the sent her a finger in the mail!" That's as shocked as I got. Sasha through out the whole book never really developed until the last few chapters. The whole book was "oh woe is me" and complete denial of what was going on around her. Then wishing the last few chapters she's all about confronting her feelings now that she has Cole to comfort her and suddenly her future is so bright.
This was definitely more focused on the romance aspect than the the mystery/thriller aspect. At first it was nice, Sasha and Cole reconnected over a first date. Then BAM! It was almost like "Well know that the first date is over with let the sexual tension begin!" Granted she and Cole did date ten years ago but THAT WAS TEN YEARS AGO. As I recall this whole book takes place over the span of two weeks at max. TWO WEEKS! In this time span three murders occur and somehow she moved past all of her issues to be in love with Cole and having hot passionate sex with him for three days in a row. Meanwhile the obvious serial killer is in her basement torturing and killing the missing women. Cole from the very beginning was the extremely overly protective boyfriend with the super model body that every girl dreams of. So basic. The way his first marriage was kind of breezed through didn't sit well with me. It was the "oh it wasn't her it was me because I've always wanted you and it will always be you" deal that is just basic and boring.
The best part of the book for me was her best friend unknowingly being in love with the serial killer, which was also glazed over. Maybe if the book had been longer or the plot/characters had been developed more I would've enjoyed this a lot more. I think being so hyped for this book also had a factor in my dislike for this book. I was acutally 80% done with this book and was reading to DNF it but I just needed to see if the end possibly picked up and made it any better. The ending was a little predictable but fine. It seemed a bit rushed through and I wish it would've gone into detail about the ending events but nope. Like I said before I'll still read Armentrout's other work. Not a bad book, just not the book for me.