3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
In the Victim’s Shadow, by Victoria Schwimley, is a romance novel with hints of suspense, that steers away from the cliched, typical romance feel. This book touches upon certain aspects such as love, friendship, murder, and desire. However, In the Victim’s Shadow, seems to orbit around one prominent theme: revenge.
In the classic romance novel, a girl meets a boy, they are the perfect match, and it's a happily ever after. In this book, it’s just the opposite. This story takes place in modern-day San Francisco and follows the life of the rich and successful lawyer, Katherine Winters. At just five years old, Katherine had witnessed the horrific murder of her mother right in front of her eyes. Now, almost twenty-seven years later, her mother’s murderer had never been caught and is still roaming about the busy streets of San Francisco. This terrifies Katherine but is not her main concern at the moment. At thirty-two years old, she wants nothing more than to find the perfect husband and start a family of her own before it’s too late.
Chad Simons had spent his whole life living in the shadow of Katherine Winters. Ever since his dad, Spencer Simons, had accidentally shot her mother, Spencer’s guilt and depression had taken over his life, leaving no time for his son Chad. Naturally, Chad blames his lousy childhood on Katherine. While she supposedly had everything from wealth to friends, he had nothing. Chad vows on his soul that he would get revenge on Katherine and her family and make her experience the same sadness and pain he had lived with since his childhood. However, in order for his plan to succeed, he needs to make Katherine fall in love with him. Will he succeed or will Katherine see through his flirting and charming smile? And how far is Chad willing to go to ‘get even’?
Like every other book, I had my likes and dislikes. I liked the amount of details the writer provided. Especially since this story had a lot of characters (well over 20), it could have been extremely confusing if the author failed to provide adequate background information. Yes, I appreciated the background information about the characters, but I felt like the transition from the present time, to flashbacks of the characters, were extremely abrupt. Additionally, this book is written in the third person omniscient point of view, which means that the readers are able to see into the minds of all the characters. I wish that the author would have put some sort of break in the story whenever the point of view changed or a flashback started. At times, it did get quite hard for me to interpret and differentiate the moments.
After reading this book, I realized how thought provoking it was. When someone loses a loved one, such as how Katherine lost her mom, my heart would have reached out to Katherine and her family only, because of their loss. However, I have now realized that it’s not just about the family of the person who died, but that it’s actually about everyone who was somehow connected to the murder, such as Chad. At first, I thought Chad was an extremely annoying and selfish character. I couldn’t stand him! I was puzzled at why would he want revenge when he did not even lose someone like Katherine had. As the story progressed, it dawned on me that Katherine was not the only one who lost someone dear to her; Chad had lost his father to guilt. Yes, his father was always there but wasn’t really there (like Chris Kyle, in ¨American Sniper¨, after he had come back from the war with PTSD). Now, my heart goes out to both families, as they have both lost loved ones in one way or another.
Overall, I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. Some parts of the book were a bit dry and uneventful, which was probably hard to avoid, seeing as this book was about 420 pages long. To my surprise, there were very few grammatical or spelling errors in this novel. I would definitely recommend this book to romance lovers as well as anyone who’s in search of a great novel to read.
******
In The Victim's Shadow
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like angelbeats1's review? Post a comment saying so!