Falls to Pieces by Douglas Corleone ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

A mother and daughter in hiding are threatened by more than secrets and lies in a twisting novel of paranoia, revenge, and psychological suspense

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April 2025; Thomas & Mercer; 978-1662522062
audio, ebook, print (285 pages); suspense

Falls to Pieces is a suspense novel by a new-to-me author.  It was full of twists and turns and kept me interested until the end.  I had some issues with the story line and the action dragged in parts but overall it was an interesting book.

Kati and her teenage daughter Zoe fled their home in Connecticut, changed their names, and now live off the grid in Hawaii.  They have been safe from their pasts for several years but that all ends when Kati's fiancé Eddie disappears while they are on a hike.  The police think that Kati is hiding something and knows what happened to Eddie.  She's totally paranoid because she knows if they dig into her background, they'll find the secrets that she's trying to hide.  Eddie's law partner, Noah reluctantly agrees to help her prove her innocence and keep her real identity hidden.  Just when life is a total mess, her daughter Zoe disappears.  She'll do anything to find her daughter but finds out that there are other secrets that are being kept from Kati and she needs to find out the real truths before she can find her daughter.  Will she be in time to keep Zoe from harm?

For me, the best parts of the story were the beautiful setting in Hawaii and the clues that were scattered all through the story with many of them being red herrings.   The negatives of the book were 1)  I didn't like the main character Kati.  I know that she was hiding from her past but she had a real difficult time telling the truth no matter what the situation was.  She was definitely an unreliable narrator and I had a hard time following her thought process.  2)  There were just too many characters.  Too many police, reporters, friends, and enemies of the dead lawyer.  It really got difficult by the middle of the book to keep up with everyone and figure out if they were helping Kati or working to make her look guilty.

This book is a quick read and despite the things that I didn't like about it, there was a surprise ending that I didn't see coming that makes the book well worth reading.

Buy Falls to Pieces at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is three hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

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