Book Review and GIVEAWAY: I Killed Zoe Spanos, by Kit Frick {ends 9/2}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

Inside, Kaylee grabs a small shopping cart and takes off past the wine displays and toward the aisles of hard alcohol like she owns the place. By the time I catch up, she has our cart stocked with a bottle of Jose Cuervo, a bottle of Bacardi white, and a yellow-green jug of margarita mix.

“Have you been here before?”

Kaylee tilts her head to one side and squints at me. “It’s a liquor store, Anna. They’re all the same. See if you can find us some pineapple juice and seltzer in the back?”

I nod and do as instructed. While I’m pulling a six-pack of little pineapple juice cans from the cold case, I hear a throat clear behind me. I straighten up, prepared to move out of the way.

“Anna?”

I spin around. “Penguin guy.”

“I prefer penguin expert,” Max says, grinning. He brushes a piece of floppy brown hair out of his eyes, and it falls right back.

The mysterious disappearance of Zoe Spanos isn’t the only mystery revealed in this book, which is full of plot twists and emotional confusion and revelations.

Official synopsis:

When Anna Cicconi arrives to the small Hamptons village of Herron Mills for a summer nanny gig, she has high hopes for a fresh start. What she finds instead is a community on edge after the disappearance of Zoe Spanos, a local girl who has been missing since New Year’s Eve. Anna bears an eerie resemblance to Zoe, and her mere presence in town stirs up still-raw feelings about the unsolved case. As Anna delves deeper into the mystery, stepping further and further into Zoe’s life, she becomes increasingly convinced that she and Zoe are connected—and that she knows what happened to her.

Two months later, Zoe’s body is found in a nearby lake, and Anna is charged with manslaughter. But Anna’s confession is riddled with holes, and Martina Green, teen host of the Missing Zoe podcast, isn’t satisfied. Did Anna really kill Zoe? And if not, can Martina’s podcast uncover the truth?

This was definitely a page-turner. Anna, the new nanny, is mistaken on her first full day of work for a girl who has been missing for months. She quickly decides to wear her hair up instead of down, so hopefully she can have less awkward encounters with the locals. Matters only get more complicated as Anna can’t resist the thought that so much of Herron Mills feels familiar to her, although her mother and her best friend insist she’s never been there before.

Anna as an unreliable narrator was an excellent character. She takes the job in Herron Mills to remove herself from what she knows was an unhealthy lifestyle. Before nannying, she had finished up high school by just partying. Lots of drinking, a handful of drugs, a few blackouts. Life had been chaotic enough that she now questions her own memories of events in her life. She’s trying to be a good person, but she’s not entirely sure what kind of person she was before.

Could Anna and Zoe have been connected before? Why is Herron Mills so familiar to Anna? And most importantly, what actually happened to Zoe? Different characters want the answer to these questions either discovered, or hidden, for all different reasons. Who is telling the truth, and who is doing their best to hide the truth?

Overall, this book was a compelling read, and getting to the end to find the answers was an irresistible race. I’d give this book 4 out of 5 stars and recommend it to young adults and adults who enjoy a great, unpredictable mystery.

{click here to purchase - only $10.99 for Kindle}

Becki Bayley shares more of what she’s reading and other fun stuff on her Instagram as PoshBecki.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of I Killed Zoe Spanos!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Wednesday, September 2nd, at 11:59pm EST, and winner will be notified via email the next day, and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

I Killed Zoe Spanos, by Kit Frick