Book Review: Thicker Than Water

Thicker Than Water

By: Brigid Kemmerer

Published By: Kensington Books

Publication Date: December 29, 2015

Page Count: 322

Buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound

Source: Kindly Provided by Publisher

Audience: YA - Mystery

Thicker Than Water is a great new paranormal mystery by Brigid Kemmerer. Thomas Bellweather is brand new in town. His mother is a newlywed, but brutally strangled weeks after her wedding and Thomas is the main suspect. At his mother's funeral, he encounters Charlotte - the youngest sister of 3 brothers, all of whom are police officers. 

 Charlotte and Thomas seem to be instantly attracted to each other, but unfortunately Thomas is arrested at the funeral for assaulting one of Charlotte's brothers. Thomas misses his mother's funeral sitting in a jail cell. 

Throughout the book, Charlotte and Thomas can't seem to stay away from each other. There seems to be something drawing the two of them together. But Charlotte's entire family is trying to keep her away from Thomas, and Thomas's step-father, who is also a cop, is warning him away from Charlotte. 

 The two of them try to figure out what could have possibly happened to Thomas's mother. The two of them discover that the police never took his mother's unpacked boxes. So they look through them until the come upon a bunch of old letters. They follow this clue until it leads them to an improbable, but the only possible conclusion. 

 Up to this point, I found the book very intriguing and I couldn't put it down. Then Charlotte has a vivid dream and Thomas is arrested for the attempted murder of Charlotte. Now the book seemed to take a downward turn for me. It seems to lead up to this great big mystery, but then things seem to get muddled very quickly and resolved too fast to make sense of it all. 

 Thomas's powers are revealed shortly thereafter but are not well explained to him or to the readers. And the clues to his powers are very subtle throughout the book. The character of JB plays a huge part at the end of the book, but I still don't really understand exactly how he was being forced to do the things he was doing. The book is promoted as paranormal; however it didn't really have a paranormal vibe to it. Thus the drop down to 3.5 birdies. 

 I was happy to see Charlotte and Thomas resolve their issues in the end. It certainly wasn't a Disney ending, but I could live with what I got. I felt like both Charlotte and Thomas took the time necessary to work through the things that happened to them And although not all things were settled, it felt as though each of them were on the right path. 

 Even with the issues I had with the book, I thoroughly enjoyed the it and finished the book in about a day. Highly recommended for mystery lovers looking for a great quick read!

Summary:

Thomas Bellweather hasn’t been in town long. Just long enough for his newlywed mother to be murdered, and for his new stepdad’s cop colleagues to decide Thomas is the primary suspect.

Not that there’s any evidence. But before Thomas got to Garretts Mill there had just been one other murder in twenty years. 

The only person who believes him is Charlotte Rooker, little sister to three cops and, with her soft hands and sweet curves, straight-up dangerous to Thomas. Her best friend was the other murder vic. And she’d like a couple answers.

Answers that could get them both killed, and reveal a truth Thomas would die to keep hidden…