Book Reviews (IV)

Book Review: Written All Over Her by Mia Darien

           Book description:

         One word can change the story of your life forever.

          Abduction. Torture. Surrender.

          Eleven months from her adolescence have framed thirty-one years of Detective Nykk Marlowe’s life. Despite the trauma of her past, and the unique physical scars it left her with, she’s built a career as a detective for the Adelheid Police Department.

Her personal life might only consist of caring for her sister and a pet rabbit, but she accepts that.

She accepts that she’ll never be able to be like “normal” people, even the supernatural ones. As long as she can keep the past where it belongs, she’s okay.

But when the body of a teenage girl shows up with the same scars that Nykk sees in the mirror every day, her “okay” life gets turned upside down and she’s forced to confront the past she’s been looking away from for sixteen years.

And when it turns out there’s already more than one victim, the pressure’s on to stop the killer before any more girls are tortured, mutilated, and murdered.



My Review

"Written All Over Her" captivated me from the first pages. A thoroughly enjoyable story by Mia Darien. Interesting characters and plot twists; this one packs a lot into a relatively short read.

I have always enjoyed detective stories and Mia Darien's novel is a classy one. Nykk Marlowe and Vance Johnson, her partner, and a shifter too, are confronted with a serial killer. Nykk's life plate is full: not only that she has to deal with her personal problems - she takes care of  her younger sister Ann, who has Down Syndrome and also has to get over her nightmarish past when she was brutalized and nearly killed - but she also has to deal with a murderer who, she suspects, is the one responsible for her scarred face and soul.

A real page turner that keeps you wondering and guessing up to the end.

The flashes, back and forth, help you better understand the character's motivation and determination in her action.

The characters are well-developed, each of whom brings his own expertise to this search for the perpetrator. I commend Mia Darien for her vivid and fluid narrative. There's no shortage of page-turning drama that kept me perfectly engaged.

If it's thrills that you seek, "Written All Over Her" will not disappoint you. It deserves five stars.