Truly, Madly, Deadly

I like Hannah Jayne's style of writing for the most part. The story is good and the plot is strong. Characters are intriguing as are the situations Sawyer finds herself in. Jayne really had me thinking the whole way through. There tended to be over-description in places. And there were areas that needed fleshing out: showing us her relationship with her stepmother and dad before, specifically Sawyer's disdain for her stepmother, would have helped the reader better understand why they react to her the way they do; why at the beginning Sawyer fell so much; why she refers to her parents as mom and dad and then mentions them by their names at other times; why Sawyer doesn't go to the police much sooner about the notes or when she finds her shoes that the Detective said were at the scene of the crime. I also had a hard time with the way her dad didn't believe her when she told him that she was not behind any of the threatening notes--what kind of father does this? He wasn't written this way, so it was a bit unbelievable that he would simply dismiss the possibility that someone else was behind the notes. Also, what kind of sheriff's station allows somebody to just walk in and take files off of a Detective's desk? Also, in the beginning, Sawyer mentions she feels guilty but it is never explained. I figured out who the culprit was early on, which isn't a good thing, though Jayne definitely threw in a lot of red herrings. Once we get the reveal, the motives are certainly disturbing, though a bit confusing. In spite of all of the above issues, I still found myself enjoying each chapter as the story was filled with lots of tension and mystery.