Blink Kindle Edition

Good read. Interesting characters.

Blink was a mystery that pulled me in right away and kept me wanting to know more until the end.Josh lives in Sugar Creek, a small town in Illinois. His mother had him young and their relationship is really toxic. Josh has to take care of his twin sisters while his mom works, which is a lot. He is also trying to get through school and maybe get a football scholarship. Josh is protective of his sisters. Their father is abusive and they have a protection order. The problem is that his mom keeps letting him back in.Josh has been obsessed with the story of Rachel, a girl who went missing from the area when he was younger. Something makes him think about her a lot. One day, he meets a new girl at the beach. Chatham tells him that she's there looking for her sister, Savannah, who ran away. Josh is drawn to Chatham. So much so that he becomes even more obsessive about her. She starts to tell him a bit about her life and he realizes that they've both dealt with abuse. It connects them. Chatham stays in town and they become closer, but she's still keeping things from him. Josh falls for her and starts helping her try to find Savannah. Savannah told Chatham that their foster parents had a girl under the floorboards in the stable. There are little things that Savannah remembered about Sugar Creek and that's why she was going there. Chatham also had dreams about a train station, which connects back to Rachel.Most of the book is clues trying to figure out who each of these girls are and how they connect to Sugar Creek. There is some romance/sex. Also, there are warnings for anyone who can't read about abuse. There is quite a bit of physical and emotinal abuse in the book.I ended up enjoying this and parts of it were hard to put down. It's hard to like many people in the book, but I still wanted to know everything.I gave Blink 4 stars. Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy for review.

Josh Michaels felt like he was under a court order to stay home and take care of his little sisters. Rosie, his mother, otherwise known as Rose Michaels-Herron-Wick, fell for just about any joker than looked her way. The last one, Damien Wick, really did have a court order to stay away from them. Damien had body slammed him on the patio, “snarling atop [him] like a rabid dog.” Rosie should have left then, but no chance she’d pick an eleven-year-old snot-nosed brat like him over a man. Now, as a seventeen-year-old, Josh was always taking care of twins Maggie and Caroline, Miss Lina. Not that he didn’t love them, he did, but Josh kind of wanted to have a life. Football, girls ... you know, a life.Northgate Beach was where he first spotted his dream girl, Chatham Claiborne. At first Josh thought she was a mirage. Aiden’s weed was really strong, but no, Chatham was a real live girl. It was on that very beach front that little Rachel Bachton had disappeared all those years ago. “If she’s still out there somewhere,” he thought, “what would she give to come back?” Rachel’s disappearance made him hold the hands of his two preschool sisters just that much tighter at times. Josh’s thoughts were all over the place, that is until Chatham just showed up out of nowhere. Chatham drew a fabulous design in the sand, asked him about his tattoo, and even liked Shakespeare.It was an instant obsession and Josh thought that “It’s crazy how I crave her.” A little gal with a bit of a Georgia accent who just showed up on the beach. Crazy. Insane. Nuts. The dull town of Sugar Creek had just come alive for Josh. Chatham was in town looking for her sister, Savannah. Savannah kept dreaming and writing about places in Sugar Creek, a place she seemed to be familiar with somehow. Savannah was running away from her stepfather, Wayne, like Josh would like to run away from that evil Derrick. Chatham told him that her sister claimed Wayne threatened to “put another little girl—A bad little girl—under the floorboard in the stables.” What? No wonder they ran away from Moon River.The search was on for Savannah, a search seemingly connected to that of Rachel Backton, but how? Everything in Josh’s life seemed to be righting itself, like a ship that almost went over in a storm. Chatham was his girl ... well, sort of ... and he was definitely being noticed on the football field. Their lives seemed almost parallel in some ways, but there were so many unanswered questions. She made living at 4421 Carpenter street almost doable until the inevitable happened. Damien Wick was “halfway across the lawn and approaching the door.” Was he going to finally snuff out that snot-nosed brat or would the brat snuff him out of their lives for good?This is a stunningly fabulous psychological thriller teen readers will love. This is a very well-crafted novel that will keep readers turning those pages. I found is so fascinating, I plowed through the pages to find out how the twists and turns in the plot would mesh. It’s certainly one of those tales that has it all, one that brought me right into the streets of Sugar Creek trying to unravel the mystery. Josh is a young man who’s had to grow up way too soon, something many young people experience. Many readers will be able to relate to both Josh and Chatham, kids who have to pay for the sins of their parents. No spoilers here, but this is one sizzling hot mystery just waiting to be cracked by young mystery buffs.

I love the way it would make you look in one directions to the past and then to another. Thought I had it figured out a couple of times and replayed the memories and what was being described. I was finally right - at the very end. LOL