Book Review for The Book Girl's Book Club for October: Wicked

Book: Wicked by Joanne Fluke

Edition: Paperback

Description:

A Killer Rivalry. . .

When Eve Carrington is chosen to participate in an exclusive writers workshop, she knows it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For one month, she will live, write, and share her work with nine other aspiring authors. The top three will get a chance to be published. But when the building they're staying in isn't ready and Eve sees the old mansion they'll be moved into, she starts having second thoughts. Not only is the mansion isolated but the deadlines are tight, the pressure intense, and the competition incredibly fierce. Her biggest rival, Angela, is writing a murder mystery based on the workshop and its participants. It's a brilliant idea. Until life begins to imitate art -- and death begins to knock out the competition . . .




Rating: 3 stars

Review:

Set in 1995, college student Eve Carrington wanted to spend the summer with her boyfriend Ryan Young but Ryan was selected for a month long writers workshop. In order to spend time with him, she worked a few connections and was able to get into the program. The workshop consisted of 10 students was being held at Sutler Mansion, an old and isolated building on the outskirts of campus. The other students attending the workshop are Angela Adams, Cheryl Frazier, Tracie Simmons, Beth Masters, Jeremy Lowe, Scott Logan, Marc Costello and Dean Isacs.

Unlike the other students, Eve wasn't there to improve her writing nor looking for the opportunity to get published, her initial reason of wanting to be in the workshop was to be with her boyfriend Ryan. She does eventually start taking the workshop serious but prior to that her reason for being there had nothing to do with writing.

The students writing projects ranged from a cookbook filled with family recipes (Cheryl) to a supernatural horror story (Eve). Angela's project stood out because she was planning on writing a murder mystery using the students in the workshop as characters in her book. With their writing underway, everything was going smoothly that is aside from Eve being jealous of how much time and attention Ryan was focusing on Angela.

Things started to go wrong, once they were quarantined after the professor running the workshop became sick. They were told not to leave Sutler Mansion and to continue on with their work. While, the students focused on their writing, one of the students was found dead. The student's death seemed similar to what happened in the first chapter of Angela's story. Although, the other students seemed to think it was simply an accidental death, Eve was a little suspicious. To make matters worse, the phone was not working and they couldn't call the police.

They came up with an idea to keep the body safe until the police could be reached but they continued on with their workshop. However, another student was found dead following the reading of another one of Angela's chapters. You would think the other students would start to become suspicious about the accidental deaths especially after the third, fourth and fifth deaths. Eve was the only one that seemed to think there was something going on. It wasn't until after the fifth death that the others finally started to see a connection with Angela's story and realize that someone was using Angela's story as inspiration for murder.

This wasn't a bad read, even though it could have been better, the writing was good and there is a good amount of drama and suspense to the mystery. However, the story does have quite a few issues and for it to work, you really have to suspend your disbelief because some of the things the characters do and the story itself are so implausible. For instance, it's hard to believe that with multiple deaths occurring most of the students (aside from Eve) didn't seem to think there was a connection to Angela's story. She's writing about these characters (or the other students) being murdered and next thing you know they die in a similar way only it looks like an accident. How could that not have set off any red flags with the other students?

Also, even though they were quarantined why didn't someone take the risk and go out to get help from the police especially since the phone was not working. It was as if they didn't get the severity of their situation with them being isolated and there was a strong possibility that one of them maybe a murderer. Speaking of the killer, throughout the story, you get a look into their point of view while also gathering a few clues as to who it might be.

As I said before, this wasn't bad but there were some issues that could have been fixed that would have improved the story.