THE WINTER SISTER - Megan Collins

3.5 stars

A sister tries to solve the cold case of her sister's murder while helping her mother struggle through a cancer treatment. This family's got issues, and the worst is yet to come.

Writing: ★★★★
Character development: ★★★★★
Surprise factor: ★

Sylvie was a teenager when her older sister, Persephone, was murdered. Out late one night with a secret boyfriend, Persephone was found murdered on the side of the road a few days later. The case was never solved, and Sylvie's life changed for the worse.

Sylvie's mother, Annie, was always mercurial. On the 15th of every month, she had a "Dark Day." After Persephone's death, every day was Annie's "Dark Day" and the spiral of alcohol made everything worse.

Now it's the present day, and Annie is dying from cancer. Jill, Annie's sister, begs Sylvie to come home and help her take care of Annie. Sylvie doesn't want to return to that house, but she does.

To make matters worse, one of the nurses in Annie's cancer ward is Ben, Persephone's secret boyfriend. Sylvie knows Ben's the true killer—she's just got to prove it.

Struggling to repair her relationship with her mother and deal with the feelings lingering as a result of her sister's cold case, Sylvie decides to solve Persephone's case once and for all.

The good:
-The character development in this novel is stunning. I loved the relationships, and their faulty steps toward family healing were the saving graces of this novel. Without the human element, The Winter Sister would have really suffered.
-The writing style was compulsively readable. You won't want to put this down!

The bad:
-I think I've read too many thrillers with this particular twist, because I was (unfortunately) able to guess it within the first few chapters. Now, I kept reading on hoping my guess was a red herring, but...it wasn't. That was it. I don't think it was hidden enough in the plot for those of us who have read this twist before, as the clues were loud and proud.
-The main character, Sylvie, was incredibly naive...almost to an unbelievable extent. She has harsh, unchangeable opinions about things, and ignores hard facts to keep her illusions. But then in other areas where she should be more cautious, she threw it all to the wind and plowed ahead, regardless of the danger involved or the impact. It made Sylvie read really young to me, and made her character inconsistent.