Great plot that needs more work!
585104
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Thank you Goodreads and St. Martins Press for an advance reader's copy of this book.

Grace thinks she is marrying the perfect man, a successful, handsome attorney who dotes on her sister, Millie, who has Downs Syndrome and has invited her to live with them.

Everything is "perfect" until the wedding...and the honeymoon. Then Grace's nightmare begins.

The author presents an I-can't-put-this-book-down-plot, which is a very quick read! Grace's thought-process and the book's dialogue are stiff, however. It often seems as if Grace is presenting us with lists of things (my daughter-in-law's words) that have happened instead of letting us in on her life.

Millie is the one character who seems to come alive. Perhaps it's because she gives Grace the courage and conviction to do what she must do? And Millie is one smart young woman.

The ability for us to believe what Esther does for Grace in the end should be a little more supported, I think, with extra incidents - several interactions with Grace would make her action plausible.
2904711
The book could certainly use a good polish (and is need of a copy editor), but I found the plot to be intriguing, and the story-line to be fairly well-written; I also found that I could relate to and sympathize with the characters. Unfortunately, the author was not entirely successful in her attempt to draw the reader in by omitting facts that are key to character development (a technique that can easily become a point of frustration for the reader, which is what happened here) -- but this failure was not enough to make the book entirely unenjoyable.

I was provided with a free copy of this book so I could give an honest review
3479879
This storyline had a lot of potential, but it is rushed and there's too much telling vs. describing. The crux of good storytelling, to me, is the ability for the readers to see through the characters eyes and feel what they felt. I did not get that in this book. There were great thoughts, but they needed to be fleshed out instead of treated more like a hurried checklist. I hope the author takes more time to flesh this out because it has a really interesting plot and subplot.
1679896
I enjoyed the story and the characters. I hope the author will find an editor who will help cut out the unnecessary words, which are just space fillers, and make the writing leaner and more impactful. If the writing was as good as the plot, this would have earned double the two stars I gave it.
2594222
The story line is interesting, exciting, and keeps you reading . The characters need more development. They alluded to things in the past making me question if this was a first novel in the series.  Since it is, I believe the characters need to be fleshed out a little more. Also we need a little insight into why the main character is so obsessive to really like her.
1930762
Great potential and I enjoy the writing style. The big issue with this author is that honestly, not a lot happens plot-wise. Where most great authors move the plot along and at the end of the book you feel like you've been on an adventure, the opposite is sort of true with this author. At the end of the book you end up asking yourself if that's all there really is? Four stars for a great premise but absent a better follow-through it may be time to put this series down. My review to be continue after book two......
295005
Dark Secrts: Legacy of Lies is a pretty good book, but i felt it could have been a lot better!
The story starts out with a girl named Megan who is visiting her grandmother (whom she has never met) in a little town in Maryland. As it turns out, her grandmothers house is the same one that she has been seeing in her dreams! And when some personal items of her grandmothers are mysteriously replaced, everything seems to  be going wrong! She starts seeing ghosts at night and starts dreaming of a life she never knew. Plus, her cousin Matt seems to hate her from the moment he sees her. What exactly is going on?!
I must admit, even though the plot contains some weird themes (like reincarnation, karma, stuff like that) the plot is very good. There is just enough mystery and twists to keep the reader interested. But my only gripe with this novel is the writing. It seemed like the conversations between the characters were somewhat forced and they weren't very well written. Plus, by the end of the novel, when many huge revelations about the characters are revealed, it wasn't well written at all and I had to read the chapter several times before I could understand what was going on. This novel would have been fantastic if the author knew how to write better!
700109
This is the same review that  I left for the second book, as the strengths and weaknesses are identical:

I read the first, second and third books. I definitely like the plot, but I have to be honest here - badly in need of an editor. And I'm not talking about spelling errors, necessarily. The authors have an annoying tendency to write in passive voice, when clearly they should be writing active voice all the way. Some of the awkward phrasing make it hard to enjoy the story. For example - the vastly excessive number of times they use "begun" in their sentences. "The marines had begun to fire back..." No. "The marines fired back..." Active, not passive. This was not a direct quote, but is illustrative of the problem to which I'm referring. All that said, I did enjoy the plotting and the pace. I think if the authors tighten up their writing, just a little bit, they'll deserve all the 5-Star ratings they get.
2379272
Great story, but the final third needs some serious proofreading - plus the rest of it needs some minor fixing. If it weren't for all the errors, I'd give it 5 stars.  Obviously, there will be a sequel.  I am looking forward to it!
4192990
This person badly needs a proofreader!

The plot and characterizations were excellent, but the technical errors were so distracting that it made reading difficult.

I also prefer it if books end, but this one leaves a HUGE cliffhanger.
4855023
The author has a nice way with a plot, and I enjoyed reading the book. Unfortunately, his character development skills need lots of work. Here, being rich always means you are a villain. It would have been nice to get to know the people better, so I didn't feel like I was cheering for or against  a stick figure.
1351511
I liked the execution of the plot (actual plot has been done before - girl on the run, forced to live with super protective security guy, they fall in love) for a couple of reasons: 1)Ryan was not perfect - while he was perfect looking, he made a lot of mistakes, wasn't a secret billionaire, and didn't have a million secret gadgets up his sleeve to save the day; 2)the secondary characters (the members of the security firm) were shown in enough detail to make me want to read another book; and 3)the heroine was strong but vulnerable.

The writing was what held this back. It was chock full of continuity issues - so many that it took me right out of the story.  I will read the next one, but if I find the same thing, I will stop after that.
3004030
I really enjoyed the story and the plot. My only real complaint lies with the author wandering away from the story at times. I believe there were two or three chapters that told an incomplete story with new characters that were never revisited. It also seemed to have a lot of filler text that artificially lengthened the book. That said, I'm still looking forward to the next one.
4612674
The plot itself wasn't bad, but the writing could use a bit of work. I'm not sure why present tense novels are popular at the moment, but it reads awkwardly. Additionally, the writing seemed a bit immature and good use revisions - for instance, the character might notice something and then go on in detail about why it was out of place. It's comes across to me as a bit lazy of the author. Instead, my suggestion would be to build the world and character beforehand. This will let the reader notice along with the protagonist.
1017338
I really liked the riveting plot and the diverse characters. There are lots of surprises.  For some unknown reason, I read book 3 and still have not read 1 & 2, although I bought them in a bundle so I can't speak to the whole series. The problem, as another reviewer stated, is the editing--or lack thereof.  It really is bad. The sentence structure, at times, is so bad as to be almost unintelligible. PhD's, as the two protagonists are supposed to be, have had enough education not to say "Me and Mommy" in the subject of a sentence. And I can't even begin to guess why a PhD 28 years old, would call her mother Mommy. The book about the daughter is better in terms of editing, but still has some errors, however its plot isn't as gripping.  Please find a good editor. You are so very talented!
188000
I received this book as part of a Goodreads First-Reads giveaway in exchange for my honest opinion.

While I loved the characters, the plot and the overall story line, this book had several editing flaws where words were capitalized that should not have been, the spacing was sometimes off, and there were way too many commas.  The book would have also flowed better if the author had used contractions throughout.  I would love it if a big publishing house would pick up this book and polish it a little, then re-release it as part of a great new series.  It had all of the elements I like in a book, some mystery, some comedy, some suspense and great characters.  Overall I would recommend this book.
3118250
This book had a great plot and some intense moments between Caroline and Brian.  This book was also not edited and had errors throughout the entire book!  I felt there was not enough energy as the book took me a week to read.  It never takes me more than a few days to read a book.  I gave the book four stars because the plot was legitimate and the strength of the characters, the main ones and supporting ones.