Betrayal (Empty Coffin
Series, #2)
Author: Gregg Olsen
Purchase on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Synopsis: It
happened so fast, the way awful things almost always do.
The blade of a knife flew
at Olivia, burying itself in her throat. It came with speed and fury. Only her
killer knew the irony of her last words.
That bloody hurts.
When foreign exchange
student Olivia Grant is stabbed to death at a party, the accusations fly
through Port Gamble faster than Twitter trending. Fingers point at frenemy
Brianna and her dim-witted boyfriend, Drew. But loner and host roommate Beth
Lee may also have an ax to grind, which sends her best friends Hayley and
Taylor Ryan down a twisted path to clear her name—only to discover a tangled
web of shocking secrets about all of them.
Brought
to you by TeamNerd Reviewer Annabell Cadiz
Read Annabell's review of ENVY, the first book in the series.
Review: As
soon as I had finished Envy, I was incredibly excited to jump into
the second installment and grateful to have received a copy of Betrayal for
a blog tour! Hayley and Taylor return in yet another dark, gritty, and
dangerous adventure to discover the truth.
Olivia Grant, an exchange
student from England who had dreamed of California and spending her days and
nights hanging out with movie stars and landing herself a hot boyfriend, isn’t
exactly thrilled when she finds herself stuck in the small town of Port Gamble,
Washington. She quickly makes do though, finding her way into the inner circle
of popularity by becoming friends with Brianna Connors, one of the richest
girls in town. On the night Brianna throws a massive Halloween party at her
Dad’s house who so happens to be away on a cruise with his new and far younger
wife, Olivia discovers just because Port Gamble is a small and quaint town, doesn’t
mean it’s above idle gossip, deep jealousies, and murder—with Olivia as the
prime victim. Hayley and Taylor, the psychic twins, set out to uncover what
really happened the night of Brianna’s Halloween party, to not only clear their
best friend Beth’s name but to find out if a serial killer is really on the
move in Port Gamble. The twins soon realize the small town they had grown up in
and loved, the small town they thought would always be safe and secure, held
more secrets than they were prepared to face.
Betrayal opens
even darker and grittier than its predecessor. Right from the first chapter,
Olsen coils a weave of innocence lost and murderous rage around the reader’s
imagination and doesn’t let go. Lies, betrayal, gossip, media fixation and
jumping to the wrong conclusions all play an intricate part within the
storyline.
As with Envy,
the suspense is tight with tension and fear. You can’t help but want to keep
turning the pages to discover what will happen next, what will be the next
secrets to emerge from the darkness. Betrayal focuses more on
the teenagers involved in the Port Gamble world instead of the adults. Hayley
and Taylor must use their gifts to find out who really killed Olivia even
though all fingers point to both Beth Lee and Brianna Connors. I liked being
able to see more of Hayley and Taylor’s personalities through the book, seeing
them more different and having a bit more depth to their characterization than
they did in Envy. I liked how more of the family secrets are starting to come to
the surface and the girls are gradually uncovering just where they got their
mysterious gifts from. I also enjoyed that Starla wasn’t apart of much of the
story. She’s a mean girl through and through and I didn’t really miss her much.
There were certain aspects
to the book that bothered me though. The scenes with Starla and Mindee which
seemed more rather useless to the progression of the story. They just seemed to
be placed in the book because readers would expect them to be and take up
space. There were moments the plot seemed to be far too dragged out for a close
to 300 paged book and some scenes were meant to build up suspense but only
aided in making the story feel long winded at times. I also would have liked to
see more interaction between Kevin Ryan, the twins father, and the girls. They
don’t seem to get much time together and I don’t fully buy their closeness. I
did like how Valerie, the twins mom had more screen time in the story, but I
didn’t understand what the big deal was as to why she couldn’t tell the girls
the truth until the end of the book. It wasn’t really all that shocking and
after all the build up the majority of the book makes to finding out the truth,
I had expected something more surprising. Even though the plot was pretty good,
it wasn’t nearly as good as in Envy. There were just moments the
plot didn’t feel like it was going anywhere and I wanted a bit more. There was
a scene where Hayley and Taylor meet up with someone they KNOW they shouldn’t
and wind up in a mess of trouble because it that had me rolling my eyes. It was
a stupid move and the girls knew that going in. I expected them to be MUCH
smarter than that! I also didn’t fully like the ending. I wanted Kevin to be
much harder on his girls and the girls to be harder on Valerie. Everything felt
too nicely and too quickly wrapped up.
Overall though, Betrayal was
a pretty good follow-up in the Empty Coffin Series. Olsen has a way
to gripping tightly to the darkest places humans can go and challenging
readers, even Young Adult readers, to facing the consequences of giving in to
such dark thoughts and secrets.
A New York Times bestselling author, Olsen has written seven nonfiction books, three novels, and contributed a short story to a collection edited by Lee Child.
The award-winning author has been a guest on dozens of national and local television shows, including educational programs for the History Channel, Learning Channel, and Discovery Channel. He has also appeared on Good Morning America, The Early Show, The Today Show, FOX News; CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, MSNBC, Entertainment Tonight, CBS 48 Hours, Oxygen’s Snapped, Court TV’s Crier Live, Inside Edition, Extra, Access Hollywood, and A&E’s Biography.
In addition to television and radio appearances, the award-winning author has been featured in Redbook, USA Today, People, Salon magazine, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times and the New York Post.
The Deep Dark was named Idaho Book of the Year by the ILA and Starvation Heights was honored by Washington’s Secretary of State for the book’s contribution to Washington state history and culture.
Olsen, a Seattle native, lives in Olalla, Washington with his wife, twin daughters, three chickens, Milo (an obedience school dropout cocker spaniel) and Suri (a mini dachshund so spoiled she wears a sweater).
Where to
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