Goodreads Giveaway Winter Reeds by Holland Kane

This was a Goodreads Giveaway book.

Ok I want to be kind as the author sent me a very nice note and the book came in a timely fashion. Unfortunately I don't think this one is for me.

I have tried three times to read and finish Winter Reeds and have failed. Here is why. I feel no emotion or connection to the main charters. So much happens within the first thirty pages with very little world or character building. What I have learned is very little and I honestly don't like Mike or Katie. 

Here is what has turned me off. The sex scene aftermath...wet t-shirt talk...ew. Katie claiming to "hate careless people" when Mike accidentally hits a deer. Only to then get a kick driving erratic and "tempting death". Made no sense.  Mike asking if Katie is channeling her parents...wait what? where did that come from? More info please. And finally Mike not manning up when he clearly sees Katy being bullied/harassed by Cole. What the hell? You want to be her man...well be a MAN.

The cover write up looked and sound really good. I think the over all story idea is a great one. I just found no connection or emotional ties to these people. Therefore felt no investment in finishing. Maybe I will try again later but for now I am gonna shelve this one. 

Cover write up
Documentary filmmaker Mike Harrison moves from New York City to a remote northwest town to research an infamous car dealership fire. The generation-old unsolved arson left two people dead, and if Mike can solve the mystery he'll have a career-making movie. He's distracted, though, by beautiful Katie Ames, a fellow New Yorker who's come to Hallmark County with her mentally handicapped brother to piece together their own complicated past. Katie's dating an architect who was tangled up in the dealership arson. The man is obsessed with Katie, and threatens her when she tries to break up with him. The next morning, the police find his dead body. Was he murdered? The medical examiner won't say. Mike and Katie are outsiders in a town where the popular Sheriff Trout is a law unto himself, and citizens live under constant surveillance. Trout has his own secrets that he doesn't want Mike to find, and he's not afraid to use his position to intimidate and coerce. But there's a story to be told: one that ties the arson, the dead architect, the sheriff, and Katie's missing family together into a devastating small-town scandal. Is Mike prepared for the price he'll have to pay to tell it?

T~