Erin O’Connor is not your typical leading lady. She is jobless and broke yet her apartment is messy with dirty clothes strewn on all surfaces, dishes are piled up, rubbish is everywhere and to top it all off, an obnoxious womaniser who will bed any woman she charms. Deemed a prodigy in her earlier years, she was supposed to be somebody in the art scene but disappeared after her life imploded.

Roped into an undercover assignment by her best friend Nat to expose racist practices in a realty firm, her path crossed again with the attractive and polished woman she had a moment with.

If this book is made up of two parts, the later half was a showcase of Erin’s redemption. For all that she lost, the most glaring was her spirit. Stuck in an endless loop of setbacks, her eyes see beauty but she can no longer execute them. When she started to spend time with the older Catherine, she was invigorated and challenged but secrets just have a way to come to the surface.

The book had a colourful array of personalities but they were crowded out with too much to focus on. I enjoyed unraveling the real Erin. Catherine as the other main character was someone I thought had so much more to tell but was left out with the length of this book. Erin and Catherine’s times together in their relationship took less than half of the book which I thought was a pity.

I just reviewed Suspecting Her by Mary P. Burns. Thank you NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for the ARC.

This book really just wasn't for me. The summary sounded promising but the characters were just lackluster and a little problematic. The idea of tackling systemic racism by whistle-blowing a realty companies' redlining practices is A+. But this book shouldn't have been told from the perspective of a white woman. It shouldn't have focused on a relationship between two white women. Natalie, a Black woman, was a great character. Too often though, I felt that she was painted in that "angry Black woman" lens that is so problematic. Even the conversations where Nat is trying to call Erin out on her white privilege, it felt like performative wokeness instead of it being a legitimate conversation. Ultimately, this just missed a lot of marks for me.

**I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

This book wasn't the worse read but it also wasn't the most enjoyable. I've never heard of this author but the plot seemed original and interesting so I decided why not. However, I did not enjoy this book.

Summary

The story follows Erin, a broke artist, hired by her journalist best friend, Nat, to look into the racist practices at a local realty company. See? An original plot. Yet in my opinion this execution wasn't very practical but I'll get to that in a bit. In her research Nat uses a participant-observation method that she strings Erin in to in order to draw some sort of contrast in the way they're treated by the realtors of this firm. With the help of their friend who works for the firm they're able to zone in with the main suspect of this article, some guy name John. They try to find out who else is working with John or at least uses the same practices as him.

Enter Catherine. At first just a beautiful woman Erin gawks at in public is soon revealed to work at this same firm. Erin stupidly investigates this realtor while falling in love and keeping the article from her. The inventible happens and Catherine finds out, breaking it off with Erin.

Review

I hate writing bad reviews, I truly do, but something about this story irked me so much. I'll start off with writing and plot before I get to what that was.

Cons- The writing was not as smooth as it could have been. The author would randomly start writing about irrelevant setting details which I found boring and unnecessary. Filled with choppy and lengthy paragraphs I often felt the urge to go on to another book. This excess writing made it a bit hard for me to connect with the characters of this book.

Pros- For all the badly written moments there were a handful of beautiful ones. Though I had my worries about the practicality and limitations of Nat's work, I do actually admire the authors ability to capture the importance of it to Nat, while short was a very beautiful scene. This coupled along with a few heart warming lines through dialogue peaked my feelings with this book.

Characters -Erin isn't a bad character, I liked her and found her interesting. The story puts her in a very unnecessary position though. It does not seem realistic to me for her to be so compliant to Nat. She easily could have swapped positions into a more research centered frame instead of placing herself in such a position with Catherine.

For most the book I did not like Nat, in fact I had made up my mind about her from the get go. She was judgmental and self centered for putting her stories needs in front of her so called best friend's, Erin. But that changed for me at about 60% through this book as Erin and Nat have a difficult conversation about why this story is important to her. This scene was beautiful for me, however it put this story in a totally different light.

Now, I want to be absolutely clear that I'm not accusing the author of anything and I'm pretty sure this was not intentional. Nat is almost meant to be disliked. She's painted in a totally dishonorable light. The readers are meant to be mad at her for putting Erin in such a position with Catherine and this is what I did not like about this story. Nat is a black woman writing about something personal to her and her identity, but the author did a poor job at highlighting the importance of that by overshadowing it with Erin. The author, writes about a black woman writing about her struggles while somewhat making her the bad guy for putting the main character in an uncomfortable position that she herself could have avoided. Again, this most likely was not intentional but it is my interpretation of what happened.

To me it just doesn't make sense to write about something so serious and relevant in today's society but use it as a tertiary plot. Yes, tertiary plot. It's almost second to Erin's flirtatious situation with their shared friend.

Now, I get it. Erin is the main character of this book yet she herself puts emphasis on Nat's story being 'their' story. I felt like Erin didn't even consider just how important this story was, it would not have killed her to wait till it was over to act on her attraction to Catherine. Yet she acted like Catherine was stolen oxygen from her lungs. This made their chemistry feel almost forced.

The author could've cut back on the unnecessary setting details and worked on all of this. This book has so much potential to be great! I imagine with more practice, planning and prioritisation of plot details I would have enjoyed this book.

I want to be clear that this is all my experience with this book. It may not have been for me but it could totally be for you.

Do I recommend this book? I don't know. I'm gonna leave that to you to decide.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the Publishers in return for a honest review

Erin is struggling to make ends meet when the gallery she was working for goes out of business and she also was a promising artist but since a bad review she hasn’t been able to paint although she does sketch a lot. When her best friend Nat ask her to help research wether a real estate is dealing with racial practices Erin jump at the chance why not she needs the money and give her something to do while she figure out what she going to do.

Caroline is the top agent at Sumter Realty which Erin and Nat is investigating. Erin poses as a potential buyer at one of Caroline open houses. Caroline is surprise to hit it off with Erin and vice verse especially when she swore off relationship after her last one made her want to be done with relationship.

I like MCs they both have chemistry I like flirting between although it nice to see the romance move slowly. I like investigative journalism part because it was more of a romance story even if it did take up a lot. Love the other characters in the book.


I received an ARC copy of this book from the Publisher via Netgalley and voluntarily leaving my review.

This is a beautifully written story but I didn't fall in love with it or it's characters. Erin O'Connor (32) was once a promising artist fresh out of school. But a poor review left her crushed and unable to paint although she sketches daily. Her best friend Nat offers her a part time job to help her research a story about racial practices dealing with a certain real estate company. It is money she can't turn down. While posing as a prospective apartment buyer she meets Caroline (45), an agent with the company under investigation. They flirt and hit it off, making plans for dinner and moving forward slowly.

I love the descriptions especially as Erin views everything with an artists eye for color, contrast and details. But for me there was a lot more focus on the investigative journalism than I was expecting. I also have a pet peeve about MC's being intimate with someone else especially after Erin and Caroline have met. I like that the two characters found each other but it felt like a potential HEA and nothing was assured. I am new to the author and would read her again. Thank you NetGalley and Bold Strokes for an ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.