šŸŽ§ Sweet Water by Cara Reinard @carareinard @amyrubinate @BrillianceAudio @PICT #LOVEAudiobooks #KindleUnlimited

Posted January 19, 2021 by Anne - Books of My Heart in Blog Tour, Book Review, Giveaway / 20 Comments

Review copy was received from NetGalley, Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.


šŸŽ§ Sweet Water by Cara Reinard @carareinard @amyrubinate @BrillianceAudio @PICT #LOVEAudiobooks #KindleUnlimitedSweet Water by Cara Reinard
Narrator: Amy Rubinate
Published by Brilliance Audio, Thomas & Mercer on January 1, 2021
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 364
Length: 11 hours, 16 minutes
Format: Audiobook, eARC
Source: NetGalley, Publisher
Goodreads
Amazon,Ā  Audible
One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star

Itā€™s what Sarah Ellsworth dreamed of. Marriage to her childhood sweetheart, Martin. Living in a historic mansion in Pennsylvaniaā€™s most exclusive borough. And Finn, a teenage son with so much promise. Untilā€¦A call for help in the middle of the night leads Sarah and Martin to the woods, where they find Finn, injured, dazed, and weeping near his girlfriendā€™s dead body. Convinced heā€™s innocent, Sarah and Martin agree to protect their son at any cost and not report the crime.

But there are things Sarah finds hard to reconcile: a cover-up by Martinā€™s family thatā€™s so unnervingly cold-blooded. Finnā€™s lies to the authorities are too comfortable, too proficient, not to arouse her suspicions. Even the secrets of the old house she lives in seem to be connected to the incident. As each troubling event unfolds, Sarah must decide how far sheā€™ll go to save her perfect life.

There is the dual aspect of a murder mystery along with a family secrets thriller in Sweet Water.Ā  I admired the main character, Sarah. She really tried to do the right things and she cared for other people. She was so naive though.Ā  She definitely allows herself to see what she wants to believe. Sarah’s father is an amazing man and parent.Ā  He loved and supported her in everything, even when she made choices he didn’t like.

I can totally understand her need for more information and not believing her son could murder someone.Ā  It would be very hard to trust law enforcement to make an effort, even if you are wealthy. I worried about her efforts to dig out the truth because it was likely someone out there did commit murder. In fact, I was sure her husband or crazy in-laws would kill her!

There was a companion to the present with flashbacks to how Sarah met her husband and ended up marrying him. It was useful to have that history and the other relationships in her life. Ā  It also clarifies why she had some blinders.Ā  It’s certainly easy to be lax with the wealth to not worry about any needs and enjoy the extras available.

I enjoyed Sarah’s courage to find and tell the truth. Her personal growth and willingness to be honest are uplifting in a time of bad happenings.

Excerpt:

Chapter 1
I reach for my phone inside my purse slung around my neck. Itā€™s dangling behind my back because I had nowhere else to put it while examining the body. ā€œSarah, is she breathing?ā€ Martin asks. I turn my head to find him, but itā€™s too dark.

I stumble, disoriented under the canopy of trees. Weā€™re somewhere off Fern Hollow Road, the closest turnoff to Finnā€™s pinned iPhone location.

ā€œI d-donā€™t know,ā€ I sputter, still shocked we found her and not Finn when we parked the car and hiked the rest of the way into Sewickley Heights Park.

ā€œCheck herā€”now. I need to find Finn.ā€ Martinā€™s voice fades into the forest, and all I want to do is follow him, but I just spoke to my son on the phone. His speech was slurred, and his girlfriend is . . .

ā€œOh God.ā€ I open my mouth and let out a strangled breath, so sick that I sway to the side.

My eyes water as I kneel beside Yazmin Veltri, a girl Iā€™ve known for only the briefest period. The wetness soaks through the holes in my jeans, settling into my bare kneecaps, ice on bone.

ā€œYazmin?ā€ I shine my phoneā€™s light in her direction, but Iā€™m stopped by the certain hint of marijuana.

Shit. All these years working with at-risk young women, and I couldnā€™t see that Finn was dating one.

ā€œPlease,ā€ I beg the starlit sky peeking through the trees. ā€œLet her be breathing.ā€

I sniffle and inhale the truth through the rotting leaves. Something terrible has happened here, and Iā€™m too late. The autumn mist snakes in through my nose, out through my mouth, emitting tiny white puffs of air.

The forest ground is slippery, a feathered blanket beneath my knees, slathering the tops of my shoes.

I hear more hurried footsteps. Martin sounds like a mouse lost in a maze. Has he found Finn? I need to go to him, but my husband told me to stay here.

The branches scratch the tops of my feet as I move closer to her, the fallen leaves collecting between my knees. Yazmin could still be alive. A bitter taste rises in my mouth as I bite my tongue, and Iā€™m close enough to touch her now.

My arm trembles as I place two fingers on the cold flesh of her neck. Not only coldā€”wet. I canā€™t see what Iā€™m touching, but I can feel her absence. Right below her jawline, in the space beside her trachea where I know a steady drumbeat should exist, thereā€™s nothing.

No pulse. My heartbeat quickens and plummets. Oh God.

My blood is rushing. Pounding. Iā€™m sweating despite the near-thirty-degree temperature. I dip my head closer to Yazminā€™s chest, careful not to tangle my hair with hers. Iā€™ve checked on my kids enough times in the middle of the night to know this girlā€™s not breathing. I shut my eyes and listen anyway.

Sure enough, the steady rise and fall of Yazminā€™s chest is absent along with her pulse.

ā€œSheā€™s dead. We have to call the police,ā€ I announce, loud enough for Martin to hear, but not nearly as loud as the screaming in my head.

Call somebody! Help!

I hear Martin crunch closer, and I turn my back on the girl.

I scoot up on my legs and use my hands to push myself into a crouching position. My breath is heavy, and everything on my bodyā€”my hands, my kneesā€”rattles with fear. I hear a cry in the distance.

My sonā€™s cry. And then Martinā€™s rustling footsteps. Beside me again.

ā€œWhere is he?ā€ I ask.

ā€œHeā€™s okay, but . . .ā€ Martin nods to the right. ā€œHeā€™s injured. We need to get him out of here, Sarah.ā€

ā€œOkay,ā€ I say, but I close my eyes because my head is a ringing bell of stress even though this wooded area is one of the things that drew me to this town. The park is near the country club where weā€™re members, where Martinā€™s family have been members for years, and things like this just donā€™t happen here.

ā€œLetā€™s go, Sarah!ā€ Martin urges.

My eyes snap open, and I hold up my phone. ā€œWait. Iā€™m calling 911. For her.ā€

ā€œNo.ā€ Martin swats my hand away with the flick of his strong knuckles. The blood on my palms makes everything slick, and my cell phone goes flying across the forest like a bar of soap in the shower. I slip sideways into a bramble of branches and land on my left hip, staring at my husbandā€™s garish face in the moonlight. He looks unfamiliar, that expression one reserved for when he loses business at work, a rare occurrence. Martin is an innovator, his causes noble. Sometimes I donā€™t approve of how he does things, but I usually approve of why.

ā€œDamn it.ā€ Martin scrambles to find my phone. Right now, I donā€™t approve at all.

ā€œWhy did you do that?ā€ I ask, but Iā€™m more surprised that heā€™s hit me than I am by the fact that he doesnā€™t agree with my decision to call the police.

ā€œIt will get reported tomorrow. We need to leave with Finn. Now.ā€

ā€œWhat? That makes no sense.ā€

Martin retrieves my phone, and Iā€™m trying to get his attention, but heā€™s looking right past me at the gas pipeline in the distance, a clear-cut, inclined path free of foliage about a thousand yards long in the mountainous terrain. Martin and I messed around with sleds one winter on a protected slope of land just like it, and I think maybe Finn and Yazmin planned their own adventure out here tonight and something went terribly wrong.

ā€œMartin.ā€ I try to get up, but my foot slips on a mossy rock.

He grabs my arm. Then drops it. ā€œWatch yourself,ā€ he says, but he doesnā€™t help me rise. Heā€™s too busy texting.

Itā€™s then that I hear water rushing nearby. The river rocks are indigenous to this area, like everything else woodsy and serene in Sewickley.

Sewickley, the Shawnee word for sweet water, derived from the tribeā€™s belief that the boroughā€™s shores were a little sweeter on that stretch of the Ohio River, the maple trees that grow at its shores only part of the saccharine story.

ā€œWhoā€™re you texting?ā€ Iā€™m crying and my hands are still wet, but I canā€™t wipe them. Thereā€™s blood all over my palms, and I canā€™t remember how it got there; head wounds bleed the worst.

ā€œHold on!ā€ Martin is standing with his back to me now, holding his phone in the air like heā€™s trying to decide what to do with it, a six-foot silhouette of trepidation. He scratches his dark hair and rubs his cell phone on his sweater-vest, but he doesnā€™t use it to call anyone, only texts.

ā€œIā€™m getting legal advice from my father,ā€ Martin says.

His father?

I picture William Sr. texting back from the comfort of one of his high-back chairs inside his home, one of the few estates that make up Sewickley Heights like a richly woven patchwork quiltā€”the expensive kind sewn together with colonials surrounded by alabaster columns and mile-long driveways.

ā€œMartin?ā€

Williamā€™s house is a fat-thatched Tudor hiding behind manicured bushes, a peek of white here, a slip of brown there, but thereā€™s no hiding from this.

ā€œOf course you have to report it!ā€ I look againā€”at herā€”and the blood is already congealing around her open head wound, her neck bent at an awkward angle, a matchstick snapped in half. The rushing water streams just behind her.

Martinā€™s tugging on my coat. ā€œGet up, Sarah. We have to go.ā€

ā€œWe canā€™t leave her.ā€ Yazminā€™s long black hair is covering the expression on her face, although the one I imagine is stuck there will haunt me more than the one I cannot see. She rests on her back, and it would be an odd way to fall, backward instead of forward, her hands crossed over her chest as if she were thwarting an attack. It reminds me of a tae kwon do block from when Finn used to take classes. Weā€™d enrolled him when he was a child because he was painfully shy, whereas Spencer, his older brother, was frequently mentioned by his teachers as boisterous or exuberant, adjectives used in private schools to describe disruptive overachievers. I might expect Spencer to get into trouble with a girl like this, but not my poor Finny.

I turn toward Martin. Heā€™s speaking, but Iā€™ve stopped listening.

His eyes are pleading. ā€œSheā€™s dead. We canā€™t help her. Finn was the last person with her.ā€

ā€œButā€”ā€

ā€œHeā€™s on something, Sarah. Drugs.ā€ Martin shakes his head furiously. ā€œThis looks bad.ā€

I can hear what heā€™s saying, but Iā€™ve retreated into my own body, and I donā€™t even know who we are right now.

We used to be Martin and Sarah Ellsworth of Blackburn Road.

We were the couple sitting at a corner table at a fancy restaurant, splitting a bottle of wine. Laughing at each otherā€™s jokes.

ā€œWe have to do something for her.ā€ My voice is swallowed by the humming sounds of the forest and the flapping of the leaves on the trees, the river. Sheā€™s already dead, but we need to make sure sheā€™s at least taken to the hospital so her parents can identify her. Bile rises in my mouth. My heart is beating so fast, drowning out everything else, but I faintly hear Finnā€™s voice again nearby.

ā€œIā€™m sorry.ā€ Martin extends his arm to help me up, but I waggle my finger in the air at him, pointing to my hands, reminding my brainy husband that Iā€™m bloodied and pulling me up isnā€™t a good idea. I mustā€™ve made the mistake of touching Yazmin in the wrong place.

ā€œRight.ā€ He draws his palms back.

My legs wonā€™t work. I gaze up, silently praying. The large enveloping trees of Sewickley Heights tower above us like old wealthy gatekeepers winking in the night.

ā€œI need your help. I canā€™t move him on my own, Sarah,ā€ Martin reveals.

I close my eyes, wishing it all away. Itā€™s all a bad dream.

ā€œCan we just make an anonymous call from a pay phone or something? For her parentsā€™ sake, at least?ā€

ā€œYou canā€™t. Theyā€™ll try to interview Finn, see the drug use, and assume the worst. Heā€™ll go to jail.ā€ His voice is thick with desperation. ā€œSarah, this will ruin Finnā€™s life. This isnā€™t his fault!ā€ Martin kicks a stone with his worn loafer, a product from one of the posh boutiques that line downtown Sewickley, a mishmash of overpriced things people donā€™t really need displayed in windowed storefronts on cobblestone streets. Thereā€™s a place to reupholster old furniture with patterns better left to die with their original owners, a claw-foot-tub specialist, an herbal spa with enough fresh fruit remedies to double as a bakery, the imported-leather-shoe store.

I bought Martin the shoes he has on now, and heā€™s worn them down to the soles. Heā€™s practical, a computer engineer and CEO of a robotics start-up in the Strip District. He does things that make sense.

But right now, heā€™s not making any.

ā€œMaybe she slipped.ā€ My voice is shallow like the night air sneaking away from my lips, but the idea of an accident fills my heart with hope. ā€œWeā€™ll leave an anonymous tip.ā€ If I had my phone, Iā€™d call myself.

Iā€™d explain this is exactly how we found her. She wasnā€™t even near our son when we discovered her body.

Unless . . . weā€™ve messed with the scene of the crime so much that weā€™ve hurt Finn more than helped him. I look down at my bloody hands and cringe. As far as we know, Finn is the last one who saw Yazmin alive. This could be very bad for him. ā€œShit.ā€

Martin grabs me by the arm. ā€œWe have to go, Sarah. Get up.ā€ I canā€™t see much of Martinā€™s face but the stringy blue vein in his forehead that only comes out when heā€™s upset.

Itā€™s been only minutes, but we need to moveā€”faster.

ā€œWe need to go to him,ā€ I say.

ā€œYes.ā€ Martin nods.

Iā€™m in shock. Thatā€™s whatā€™s wrong with me. I blindly follow Martin, adrenaline fueling my limbs. Finn is off the beaten path, and I feel as though Iā€™ve already failed him for taking so long. Heā€™s huddled over a pile of leaves, his knees tucked into his chest like he used to do when he was a little kid. He looks so small right now.

So young.

A little boy who fell off his scooter and skinned his knee. I wish this problem were as easy to fix.

I wipe my hands on my jeans and throw my arms around him.

ā€œIā€™m here. Momā€™s here.ā€ Finnā€™s crying and I donā€™t know how to make it better for him. He obviously didnā€™t mean for the girl to get hurt, but this was no accident either. Heā€™s made a terrible mistake, gotten himself into a horrible predicament. So Finn did what we always told him to do if he was ever in troubleā€”he called us.

***Excerpt from Sweet Water by Cara Reinard. Copyright 2021 by Cara Reinard. Reproduced with permission from Cara Reinard. All rights reserved.

Narration:

The voice seemed to fit well with Sarah. She is the main character so we are in her thoughts and point of view.Ā  Ā The performance brought the emotions to life in the story.Ā  I enjoyed listening at 1.25x speed.

Listen to a clip:

 

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This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Cara Reinard. There will be two (2) winners each receiving one (1) Amazon.com Gift Card. The giveaway runs through February 2, 2021.

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About Cara Reinard

Cara Reinard grew up north of Sewickley, Pennsylvania in a steel mill town, raised by a single mother. Sewickley, with its grand houses in the Heights and boutique shops on Main was a magical place, out of reach. Cara then attended a private college, Gannon University, becoming the features editor for the college paper, and receiving a scholarship. The residence in Sweet Water was inspired by the party home of steel mogul B.F. Jonesā€”the property still exists, including the pool and pergola. Cara is the author of womenā€™s fiction and domestic suspense. She currently lives outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, two children, and Bernese mountain dog.

Rating Breakdown
Narration (Audio)
One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star
Overall: One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star
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Posted January 19, 2021 by Anne - Books of My Heart in Blog Tour, Book Review, Giveaway / 20 Comments


20 responses to “šŸŽ§ Sweet Water by Cara Reinard