A Cainsville Novel
Kelley Armstrong
August 20, 2013
Twenty-four-year-old Olivia Taylor Jones has the perfect life. The only daughter of a wealthy, prominent Chicago family, she has an Ivy League education, pursues volunteerism and philanthropy, and is engaged to a handsome young tech firm CEO with political ambitions.
But Olivia’s world is shattered when she learns that she’s adopted. Her real parents? Todd and Pamela Larsen, notorious serial killers serving a life sentence. When the news brings a maelstrom of unwanted publicity to her adopted family and fiancé, Olivia decides to find out the truth about the Larsens.
Olivia ends up in the small town of Cainsville, Illinois, an old and cloistered community that takes a particular interest in both Olivia and her efforts to uncover her birth parents’ past.
Aided by her mother’s former lawyer, Gabriel Walsh, Olivia focuses on the Larsens’ last crime, the one her birth mother swears will prove their innocence. But as she and Gabriel start investigating the case, Olivia finds herself drawing on abilities that have remained hidden since her childhood, gifts that make her both a valuable addition to Cainsville and deeply vulnerable to unknown enemies. Because there are darker secrets behind her new home and powers lurking in the shadows that have their own plans for her.
This audiobook for me moved a little slow. I love Kelley Armstrong's work but while this
book is decent it is has not become one of my favorites. The story starts off with Olivia, the main character,
finding out she is adopted and her parents are ritualistic serial killers. Through the help of a mysterious man she
finds herself in Cainsville after leaving Chicago and everything she has ever
known. She decides to get a job and live
on her own without the support of her socialite adopted mother. Out of curiosity she decides to go to go
visit her birth mother in prison. She
finds out there may be real evidence to support her birth mother's claim that
they are both innocent. With the help of
her birth mother's attorney, Gabriel, she begins digging into the past.
I like that things aren't what they seem in Cainsville. I am
not the type of reader to go off on my own and solve the mystery before the
heroine. There are a ton puzzle pieces
that I liked reading along as Olivia put them together. I liked being just as surprised as Olivia
when all was revealed in the end.
Cainsville it's self is an intriguing town. It reminds of that show from the 90's Twin
Peaks. Cainsville is a strange town,
full of strange people, with even stranger secrets.
I could tell Omens was definitely a first book to start off
a series because in the end it left with me more questions than answers. I will be picking up the next book because I
am curious to see how my questions will be answered. The style of the book is first and third
person narration. The first person point
of view is through Olivia's eyes interspersed with third person point of views
from people Olivia has met or is yet to meet.
I think the third person points of views were supposed to help give
clues to the reader but I found some them confusing and again leaving me with
questions. The audiobook had two
different narrators for the first and third person points of view. The narrator that read for the third POV was
decent and did a good job. The narrator
that read in Olivia's POV was, for me, was not the way I think a 24 year old
woman should sound. Her voice, again for
me, was kind of grating and I never got used to it. She did a good job changed all voices to
match characters but I just could not get used to her voice.
In the end I think I went into Omens with too high
expectations. It ended up falling flat
was just a mediocre story. I am giving
Omens by Kelley Armstrong three laser pistols because it was just an ok
listen. It was intriguing enough that I
will be picking up the next book in the series.
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