A Captivating Story ~ Bury Me by Tara Sivec

review by Donna Huber

There were a few reasons I was excited to "read" Bury Me by Tara Sivec. One, I'm always looking for a great thriller and this one was definitely a captivating story. Two, it is set in a prison turned museum. When I visited San Francisco in 2009, I went to Alcatraz and it was really cool. I didn't realize that the families of the workers lived on the island. There was whole little neighborhood there. And third, I've been wanting to try out an audio book produced by ListenUp. They are a Georgia-based audio book and I like supporting local companies.

What if all you knew was your name and where you lived? One can be verified. What if the other is a lie?

Told in first person with a very unreliable narrator, Bury Me is in turn intriguing, heartwarming, and a bit creepy.

Donna in a cell at Alcatraz

Between the cover and the opening scene where the main character awakes in a cell, after a nightmare of running through the woods, with only fleeting snatches of memories, memories that make little sense based on what she has been told, I worried this story would quickly turn into one of horror. While some horrific events did take place, the story stays on this side of thriller with its intrigue.

And intriguing it is. Sivec did a wonderful job of laying out this story. By revealing the plot in bits and pieces, often back tracking with the "story" changing as the main character's memories become more clear or conflicting information is revealed. The reader feels as off-kilter as the main character feels. What is reality...what is the truth?

I figured out what was going on only moments before it was revealed. Which is definitely a mark of an excellent thriller. Yet, the story doesn't end there. We move years into the future and it is a bit shocking how it all ended up. I'm still undecided if one aspect of the plot was too predictable or an interesting point of continuity.

My only "complaint" is that it was difficult in the beginning to determine when the story was taking place. With all the other weirdness surrounding the main character, I wasn't sure if the references to the dresses in her closet, the braids she always wore, the hat in the hat box that mother wore to town, was suppose to clue me into the time or that her family was a bit crazy. Apparently it was meant for the former (not saying that the latter isn't true) a year is later referenced that has the story taking place in the late 1950s.

ListenUp did a great job with the production of Bury Me. I loved the narrator, Stephanie Willis.

This was a gem of a story and I will be on the lookout for more books by Tara Sivec.

Buy Bury Me at Amazon

Book info:
available formats: ebook, audio, print (284 pages)
published: November 2015 by ListenUp Production
ISBN13: 978-1515370680
genres: thriller
source: publisher via Audible



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