Perfect Little Lives by Amber and Danielle Brown (Review by Aura Johnson)

Rating: 3/5

Simone has not experienced a great life since her mother was murdered when Simone was thirteen. Her father was immediately imprisoned for life with the lack of any substantial evidence, and Simone has spent most of her time at work trying to find ways to cover legal bills and hope for a successful appeal so that her father would be exonerated. Even though she wants to forget what happened, the people around her, including a journalist who is making a documentary on this crime that shook the community and her old neighbor Hunter, keep reminding her of the torturous past.

As she dives into her mother’s murder investigation, she keeps uncovering small clues to secrets that were supposed to be buried with her mother. Even though the investigation is thirteen years old, and most physical evidence now would be gone, Simone refuses to give up, going as far as using Hunter to get close to his family after it was revealed that her mother and his father carried on a years-long affair and that his father had real feelings for her mother (which, of course, could have been seen as a crime of passion immediately). She goes on to point accusatory finger at anyone who is even remotely a suspect, uncovering a shocking truth of what actually happened to her mother, leading to a least suspected killer, who attempts to further cover up the tracks by trying to repeat the crime. 

The book was a very interesting read, the authors revealed small pieces of evidence at a time, but constantly kept me guessing as to who killed Simone’s mother, until the very end of the story. I enjoyed the fact that the story was told from a few points of view, one of which was completely shocking and unexpected, leaving me audibly telling my cat, “what just happened?!”