Good evening frends!
This time the book didn’t quite hit home. I don’t know if it is because I’m on vacation or if it is that my readinghabits has just been blown to pieces this summer but sometimes every reader experience a book that wasn’t exactly what they had hoped for. The synopsis is borrowed from the blog tour’s media kit:
Lies, secrets, and a sinister plot hide in broad daylight at the heart of the Club Pacifica. A beautiful tropical resort, exciting new friends, and a handsome guest liaison – it’s the perfect getaway for Chloe, a free-spirited Baltimore girl just getting to know herself. But the vacation of a lifetime quickly takes a dark turn when a young, overly flirty bellhop starts following her everywhere. It gets even worse when he disappears, and Chloe is the sole witness. As bellhop after bellhop goes missing, she struggles to figure out what’s happening. When suspicion falls upon her, Chloe must not only try to rescue the kidnapped bellhops, but also to clear her name. Complicating things further is the relationship she forms with Mateo, Club Pacifica’s guest liaison. Charming and easygoing, he is everything that her fiancé at home is not, and she finds herself fighting a growing attraction to him. But can he be trusted? She soon discovers that she’s landed herself in a world of secrets, and, worse, that these are not just those of others, but also the secrets she keeps from herself. Can she find her way through all the lies to finally discover the truth before it’s too late?
The Bellhop Only Stalks Once is one of those books you either like or don’t like. Sadly, I fall into the last category because I struggled to connect with this story. I found it confusing at times and also quite jumpy where the transition between situations were lost on me. There were several sections where the transition from one situation was very well exectured but too often they fell flat in my opinion. I’m also a bit frustrated with several spelling errors or lack of words in several sentences. I know that I might be a tat overly focused on these sort of things but when they occur several times during one book then I quickly fall off the wagon. And before we venture further, I am fully aware that my reviews aren’t free of spelling erroros themselves, haha. I did however enjoy the concept of the story! I think it is a brilliant idea and I enjoyed that Hickey included Costa Rican folklore and myths. In my opinion that is always a great thing to do when you write about a foreign culture because it can provide your reader with something new and exciting for them to learn. The total excecution of the book, however, weren’t quite to my liking but you can’t love every book and every author can’t please every reader. That’s just the natural way of the world and I see that several readers have given this book a high rating on Goodreads!
Chloe as a character were a bit too plain and too American for me but I enjoyed that Hickey gives her reader the opportunity to visualize Chloe to a great extent! There are few adjective to describe Chloe, both her physical and mental presence, which gives the reader’s imagination a chance to play with the image of our main female character. I think this creates for a greater engagement with the story from a readers perspective, and it was quite fun! Chloe’s friends, Sopie and Kaia, were some interesting characters to say the least! At first I got the impression that Sopie was the more normal one of the two but that quickly changed when Kaia came into the picture. When I continued the story I started to wonder whether Sopie had some sort of diagnosis or if she just was a bit too much in terms of her behavior. I were never able to agree with myself on which diagnosis this would be so I think I’m going to rest it all on a bit of an excessive behavior.
The Bellhop Only Stalks Once weren’t quite my typa book but I see that several readers have given it a good rating so I don’t think my review should doom your prospects of reading this book if you want to! I enjoyed the concept and that folkore and local myths were involved but in total the book fell a bit flat for me, sadly.
Published: 2020
Genre: Suspense
Theme: Vacation, mystery, missing people, love
Author Bio
Cat Hickey has a Master’s degree in Biology, and teaches Anatomy and Physiology at a university in Baltimore, MD, USA. She writes light-hearted mysteries and thrillers that are based, partly, on her extensive travels around the world. She is also an avid yogi who teaches aerial yoga and practices aerial circus arts, and spends the rest of her time with her four rescue animals, which consist of three cats and a horse.
Social Media Links
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cat.hickey.908?sk=wall
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CatHickey4
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