Series: The Whitecliff Bay Mystery #1
Publication Date: 17th April 2023
Genre: Small Town Mystery
3.7 Stars
One Liner: An intriguing start to a new series
Whitecliff is your typical seaside small town where everyone knows everyone and everything is everybody’s business. Millie Westlake volunteers at the local nursing home as a way to avoid her past and the suspicions that cling to her like a second skin. Her parents died a year ago, and people think she killed them. What’s more, Millie has to deal with personal issues too.
However, when Ingrid, an old lady from the nursing home, tells Millie that she saw a young girl being pushed off a roof, Millie doesn’t know what to believe. Something urges her to find out more, and soon she comes across a few things that can be counted as evidence.
This puts Millie in danger, and with most of the town against her, can she find the truth about the young girl on the roof? What about her past that she doesn’t want to think about? Is Millie strong enough to handle the truth?
The story comes from Millie’s third-person POV.
My Thoughts:
This is a slow-burn mystery with more focus on the central character. Mille is intriguing and complex, with flaws, vulnerabilities, and secrets.
Gus is another interesting character. His passion to tell people’s stories and his complicated relationship with Millie and her parents makes him an almost secondary character in the book.
The small town setting is darker and feels oppressive. It suits the plot and the characters. The underlying tension, the secrets, hints of violence, and the narrow-minded attitudes of people seamlessly oven into the narrative.
The mystery itself is weak. It starts out strong, but the reveal and reasons aren’t emphatic. It doesn’t help that the characters themselves say things like it was a miracle so and so happened. It feels like taking an easy way out to deal with the mystery.
However, the mystery also feels like a subplot, something to take the main story ahead and establish the character arcs. It helped to know that this is the first book in the series, and the next two are also available. I could readjust my expectations and read it more as an installment rather than a standalone. (It can be standalone, though my curious nose will never be satisfied unless I know more.)
The supporting characters, especially Jack and Rish, are sweet and just as flawed. The other side characters aren’t fully developed yet but show promise. The pacing is decent; slowish in the first half but medium-to-fast in the second half.
I like that there aren’t a bunch of suspects or the routine amateur sleuthing. Though Millie does get into trouble for being impulsive, it doesn’t happen until the climax.
To summarize, The One Who Fell is a good start to a series, and I am curious to know more. It is a cozy mystery, albeit slightly dark. So dark cozy mystery, maybe?
Thank you, NetGalley and Bookouture, for the eARC.
#NetGalley #TheOneWhoFell
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