OMENS (Cainsville #1) by Kelley Armstrong-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date August 20, 2013

Twenty-four-year-old Olivia Taylor Jones has the perfect life. The only daughter of a wealthy, prominent Chicago family, she has an Ivy League education, pursues volunteerism and philanthropy, and is engaged to a handsome young tech firm CEO with political ambitions.

But Olivia’s world is shattered when she learns that she’s adopted. Her real parents? Todd and Pamela Larsen, notorious serial killers serving a life sentence. When the news brings a maelstrom of unwanted publicity to her adopted family and fiancé, Olivia decides to find out the truth about the Larsens.

Olivia ends up in the small town of Cainsville, Illinois, an old and cloistered community that takes a particular interest in both Olivia and her efforts to uncover her birth parents’ past.

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REVIEW: OMENS is the first storyline in Kelley Armstrong’s new contemporary mystery (slightly paranormal) CAINSVILLE series focusing on Olivia Taylor and her fight to prove, one way or another, that her birth parents Pam and Todd Larsen may or may not be the notorious serial killers who murdered eight people over two decades earlier.

Olivia Taylor-Jones has just discovered that she was adopted as a child and her life is making headline news around the world. Needing to leave town, her parents and her fiancé behind, Olivia, also known as Eden Larsen, finds herself penniless in a small, cloistered town known as Cainsville and things have gone from bad to down right strange. Hoping to uncover the details about the twenty year old murders, Olivia enlists the help of her mother’s former lawyer -Gabriel Walsh-only to discover he is out for one thing and money is the bottom line.

Kelley Armstrong takes the reader on a mysterious journey that will see our heroine Olivia aka Eden on the run and settling in a strange town. ‘Reading’ omens and symbols that give warning of danger and death at every turn, Olivia begins to wonder who or what is determined to keep her from discovering the truth behind her parent’s conviction and the real people behind the murders. With a town full of ‘gifted’ seers and prophetic elders, Cainsville can only be considered a town with a paranormal undertone of Celtic ancestry.

The writing style grabs the reader’s attention and keeps you on the edge. There is the mystery of the crime of murder; a town of strangers who know more about Eden Larsen than does Olivia Jones; and a lawyer whose motives are questionable and the bottom line always reverts back to money. There is intrigue, suspense, mystery and betrayal and when the truth about Olivia’s birth parents is revealed she will discover who are her real friends and just how lonely life can be without the support of parents and family. The storyline is detailed and the premise is intriguing.

Kelley Armstrong is a proven winner with her Women of the Otherworld series and she has introduced another strong female character in Eden Larsen/Olivia Jones that drives the storyline and the series into another dimension of mystery,suspense and the paranormal.

Copy supplied by the publisher

Reviewed by Sandy