Review: He Will Be My Ruin by K.A. Tucker

He Will Be My Ruin by K.A. Tucker

Blurb from Goodreads:

The USA TODAY bestselling author of the Ten Tiny Breaths and Burying Water series makes her suspense debut with this sexy, heartpounding story of a young woman determined to find justice after her best friend’s death, a story pulsing with the “intense, hot, emotional” (Colleen Hoover) writing that exhilarates her legions of fans.

A woman who almost had it all . . .

On the surface, Celine Gonzalez had everything a twenty-eight-year-old woman could want: a one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a job that (mostly) paid the bills, and an acceptance letter to the prestigious Hollingsworth Institute of Art, where she would finally live out her dream of becoming an antiques appraiser for a major auction house. All she had worked so hard to achieve was finally within her reach. So why would she kill herself?

A man who was supposed to be her salvation . . .

Maggie Sparkes arrives in New York City to pack up what’s left of her best friend’s belongings after a suicide that has left everyone stunned. The police have deemed the evidence conclusive: Celine got into bed, downed a lethal cocktail of pills and vodka, and never woke up. But when Maggie discovers a scandalous photograph in a lock box hidden in Celine’s apartment, she begins asking questions. Questions about the man Celine fell in love with. The man she never told anyone about, not even Maggie. The man Celine believed would change her life.

Until he became her ruin. 

On the hunt for evidence that will force the police to reopen the case, Maggie uncovers more than she bargained for about Celine’s private life—and inadvertently puts herself on the radar of a killer. A killer who will stop at nothing to keep his crimes undiscovered. 

My Review:
 

The concept of this book and its execution felt pretty generic to me although the writing was not bad.  I love suspense and thrillers, which is why I wanted to read this and thought there would be some huge twist, but this one wasn't very suspenseful or thrilling for me.  The author pretty quickly guided you into figuring out this "mystery" and it was so classic and obvious.  The problem was that there wasn't enough else that was unique in the story to drive it past such an obvious mystery.  I also was pretty bored reading this book -- the MC, Maggie, should be very likeable since she is a trust fund baby who spends her life helping the poor and has taken time off from her work in Africa to try and find her best friend's killer.  That being said, Maggie was a magnet for stupid decisions and judging her best friend.  While it is true that it turned out that she really didn't know her best friend like she thought she did, I couldn't help but feel that she was so judgmental when she found out the truth about Celine and focused on making sure everyone knew how amazing she (Maggie) was to eschew her personal wealth and try to make a difference.  

I will say that Maggie was very focused on, and truly did want to find out, what happened to Celine but she wasn't very smart.  Her two love interests, and I do hesitate to call them that but I'm not sure what else to call them (without spoiling the book), were utterly awful.  It was hard to imagine that someone like Maggie would have been so turned around and such a bad judge of character.  My dislike of the main characters in the book (with the exception of Ruby, the elderly nosy next door neighbor and mystery writer) ultimately made this drop from 3 stars to 2.5 stars -- I just didn't see any sense in villainizing the victim (Celine) in this book.  Depression and/or addiction do not make someone a bad person, but the ending of the book seemed to take away from the fact that Celine was a victim.  The ending was definitely unsatisfying for me and I hated how many loose strings were wrapped up in the epilogue.

On the plus side, I would recommend this to someone wanting to ease into the thriller/suspense genre from pure contemporary romance.  I would also recommend this to fans of the Inside Out series by Lisa Renee Jones (I really liked the first book in that series but it went downhill for me after that) -- there are a lot of similarities between the two.  I also think fans of the Consequences series by Aleatha Romig would like this one.  In this sort of genre, I really loved Swerve by Vicki Pettersson.  He Will Be My Ruin is scheduled for release on February, 2, 2016,  and you can purchase HERE!