SBT12: Review: All the Pretty Girls by JT Ellison

Southern Book Tour 2012

 

When a local girl falls prey to a sadistic serial killer, Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson and her lover, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, find themselves pursuing a vicious murderer. As the killer spirals out of control, everyone must face a horrible truth--evil is born of private lies.

Audio CD [downloaded from my local library]
Published April 6th 2010 by Brilliance Audio (first published January 1st 2007)
ISBN: 1441838406 (ISBN13: 9781441838407)
series: Taylor Jackson #1
(Goodreads)

 

Review:

I was browsing the selection of downloadable audiobooks from my local library when I stumbled upon All the Pretty Girls by JT Ellison.  The cover was pretty awesome, and the blurb was pretty intriguing, so I downloaded it.

Let’s start off with my biggest issue with the story.  Taylor Jackson, our heroine, gets some news from the doctor [SPOILER ALERT'] that’s she’s preggers.  Her first reaction is to the bar and order a beer.  Her BFF Sam (who is the coroner) who is preggers also shows up and gives PERMISSION—ok, did you get that PERMISSION—for Taylor to get drunk off her butt and smoke.  Really?  Every woman, and most men, know that smoking and drinking is not good at all for a baby in utero.  I was floored by this.

Next, and not nearly as irritating as the previous point, is that I just didn’t connect with the characters.  I don’t know why, because I really enjoyed the story.  I was more invested in the secondary characters than Taylor and John.  And that makes me sad.

This is a very intense, very plot-driven story.  It’s exciting and addictive.  And really very good.  Ellison kept me guessing until near the end, when the major reveal of the whodunit.

If you like Southern fiction and crime novels, read this one!

4 Trees: Suspense with a Southern twist.

Get to reading,

What makes this book Southern?

Well, the most obvious answer is that it’s set in the South.  All through out the Southeast, actually.  The narrator does a great job of creating a variety of Southern  dialects that captures the variety and resonance of the Southern voice.

About the author

J.T. Ellison is the international award-winning author of seven critically acclaimed novels, multiple short stories and has been published in over twenty countries.

A former White House staffer, she has worked extensively with the Metro Nashville Police, the FBI and various other law enforcement organizations to research her novels. She lives in Nashville with her husband and a poorly trained cat, and is hard at work on her next novel.

Visit JTEllison.com or Twitter with JT @thrillerchick.
(Goodreads)