JUST FALL

In Sadowsky’s debut thriller, a young woman must face her own capacity for violence in order to save the man she loves.

Beautiful and blonde, Ellie has been looking forward to her wedding with Rob ever since they met. But on that magic day, she finds out that her husband is not the man she thought he was; rather, he's a hired killer living under an assumed name. Instead of enjoying a romantic honeymoon in St. Lucia, the two are soon embroiled in a murderous plot involving at least one psychopath, a drug dealer, several kidnapped children, and the hope that by doing terrible things, they might be able to escape Rob’s past together. The novel is structured out of chronology, so the reader sees Ellie having just committed a murder in the first few pages and slowly learns how she came to that point, why she's done what she’s done, and, eventually, why it might be justified. Ellie and Rob are supposed to earn the reader’s sympathy because they both have shameful secrets but found second chances for love in each other and, we are told, they have really good sex, but they're not very engaging characters. Too much stock is put in Ellie’s physical attributes, and Rob, despite his complicated, abusive past, does not seem particularly worthy of redemption. Actually, the most interesting character is the St. Lucian policeman haunted by the missing children. At least he has some depth. The final twist in the story—the “unexpected” betrayal!—happens too fast and is underdeveloped and unearned.

The novel concludes with threat of a sequel, but it’s hard to stimulate much interest in seeing what Rob and Ellie do next.