Review: Stone Cove Island by Suzanne Meyers

Title:  Stone Cove Island 

Author: Suzanne Meyers
Publisher: Soho Teen
Publishing Date: November 11th 2014
Pages: 240
Genre: YA Mystery Thriller
Series: Stand Alone
Source:  Audio

  

When a catastrophic hurricane devastates Stone Cove Island, a serene New England resort community, everyone pulls together to rebuild. Seventeen-year-old Eliza Elliot volunteers to clean out the island’s iconic lighthouse and stumbles upon a secret in the wreckage: a handwritten, anonymous confession to a thirty-year-old crime.

Bess Linsky’s unsolved murder has long haunted the island, and the letter turns the town inside out. Everyone who knew Bess is suddenly a suspect. Soon Eliza finds herself in the throes of an investigation she never wanted or asked for. As Stone Cove Island fights to recover from disaster, Eliza plunges the locals back into a nightmare they believed was long buried.

This book caught my attention right away. I grabbed it first off netgalley then grabbed it on audio. It was a great audio. I was hooked into the story from the very beginning. The story had a lot to give.  It was a great mystery but also had some realistic issues in the mix. It was great paced, a pretty fast read, and it was very captivating. I was happy with the read from the first page to the last page. 

Eliza grew up on Stone Cove Island and one of the downsides to growing up on the island are the storms, the boredom. The upsides, knowing everyone around and of course the simple life of living on the island. All this changes after one night of a pretty bad hurricane that leaves the island in wreckage. Eliza finds a letter int he clean up that leads to a pretty good mystery, a murder mystery. Everyone on the island has kept this murder a secret and now Eliza finds herself investigating a 30 year old murder on an island where everyone she thought she knew isn't what they seem. 

I went into this book expecting more of a thriller suspense and I really got something a bit better. I was prepared for a mystery and there was a mystery. A pretty good one. For most of the book I didn't know where the story was taking me and the ending was quite different than I had anticipated. It was a great ending. Everything leading up to the ending was pretty good too. There really wasn't much in the thrills department, but that was okay with me. What I did get with the mystery, the emotions, the romance, the adventure, it was enough for me to have a quite satisfying read. 

Eliza was a pretty good character. She was realistic for me and she had a lot to deal with in terms of her home life. Her mother was pretty kooky, paranoid, a bit crazy and her father was doing his best to balance it out for Eliza. Eliza thought her home life was pretty good even though her mother had her issues. She didn't have an extravagant type of life, it was pretty simple but she was happy. her life was turn upside down a bit once the hurricane hit and she found a letter that sounded like a pretty threatening letter and of course that letter led to a very old murder mystery. A murder that happened to someone her parents knew, a murder where the murderer was never caught. A murder that seemed to have quite a few towns people involved.  A murder that is the reason her mother has some pretty deep issues. A murder that Eliza was determined to solve. Eliza was smart and she had a way of finding out what she needed to find out. She was resourceful. She was also loyal to her family, respectful, a bit on the quiet side. She was independent and pretty stable. I really liked her. 

Another main character in this story was Charlie and I loved Charlie. He seemed to be a pretty solid character. He had his stuff together and was a pretty smart guy. Sweet too. I never found him overly swoony but he was pretty charming and he fit well with Eliza's character. 

Something I appreciated about this book was the characters. They had just enough background issues to make them well rounded but none of their issues were overwhelming. They were not whiny or self centered. They knew things weren't perfect but they didn't let it stop their lives. Their issues too a backseat to the mystery but were still in the story to give it a more realistic feel. 

The mystery was definitely my favorite part and is what kept me reading but the romance was good too. It was very slow building and it was sweet, kind of just there in the background but still pretty obvious it was there and waiting to happen. When it did happen it was pretty amazing and I just fell for it. It was perfect for this story. 

The story was written well, I was captivated from the beginning to the end. The story was enough on its own to keep me interested, to find out what happens next, to get to the end. Add in the great characters, the sweet romance, it was a just the right ingredients for a great story. 

The only thing that I could have wished for was a bit more thrills, but other than that, it was really really good.

I loved it from beginning to end. A great mystery to curl up with on a cold winter night. 

Suzanne Myers was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Toronto, Canada. She is a graduate of Princeton University and USC Film School. Her feature film Alchemy won the SXSW Film Festival. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two sons, and two dogs. Stone Cove Island is her first novel.