Darkwater Secrets by Robin Caroll

Darkwater Secrets by Robin Caroll ISBN-13: 9781683700685 Paperback: 272 pages Publisher: Gilead Publishing Released: July 17, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
The Darkwater Inn stands tall and proud in the French Quarter, the hub of New Orleans. Bourbon Street is bustling, and general manager Adelaide Fountaine has her hands full with a hotel at capacity. But she is shocked when a body is found: a hotel guest stabbed with a kitchen knife.

Detective Beau Savoie, Adelaide's childhood friend, is on the case. As Beau digs into the victim's past, he unearths a shocking connection between Adelaide and the murdered guest. Beau is hurt that his friend--the woman he's quietly loved for years--kept the truth from him. To make matters worse, the stress of the investigation has sent Adelaide right into the comforting arms of her coworker Dimitri.


My Review:
Darkwater Secrets is a novel about how secret traumas affect our lives. It's not really a mystery as I easily and correctly guessed who committed the murder (and why) very shortly after the murder occurred. While the detective did follow up obvious leads and was able to get forensic results nearly instantly, the mystery was solved by the murderer confessing at 66% into the story. After that, it was simply a matter of dealing with the non-mystery relationship problems that had developed and healing from past trauma.

Gorgeous Adelaide had no desire to date (and for good reason), but both Dimitri and Beau secretly love her. It's not really a romance novel, though. I liked the characters and cared about what happened to them. However, the story had a lot of filler. For example, several conversations were basically repeated (since the good advice was rejected the first time or two). Also, the sentence structure was often poor, creating sentences that were confusing or unintentionally funny.

One main character was a Christian, while other characters practiced voodoo. There was no sex or bad language.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.