Spoilt by Joanne Ellis

THE BLURB

Passion turns to envy. Love to murder. One way or another, everyone is spoilt.

A sadistic serial killer is stalking the streets, carving his hate into the bodies of beautiful, young women.

When her best friend goes missing, a distraught Chelsea meets Lucas, a detective on the case who is struggling to remain focused, as the murders are stirring up painful memories.

After Elle is discovered murdered and another girl is abducted, the detectives do their best to locate the killer. As they hit one dead end after another, Lucas and Chelsea begin to fall in love, despite Lucas bearing scars from the past, and Chelsea still hurting from being rejected by her fiancé.

As the murders continue, things take a turn for the worse when they realise that Chelsea is being stalked. Lucas must do all he can and more to protect the woman he loves. Can he succeed, or is the world itself spoilt?

WHAT I THOUGHT

Well, when I finished the book I thought gee, I’d like to read more about Chelsea and Lucas.

This book is two things, a love story and a crime novel.  Make sense?  Read it and you’ll know what I’m talking about.  I honestly can’t decide if the book was more about love or more about crime and so I’ll play it safe and say it was 50/50.  Which aspect did I like most you might ask – both and equally so.  Joanne Ellis has done a great job of producing a page-turning book which meshes the two together quite nicely.

Okay, romance first.  Both Chelsea and Lucas have had things happen in their past which, undoubtedly, could always affect future relationships.  Perhaps it is precisely this which could make them a good fit.  I liked both characters and just wanted them to get their groove on already.  I wanted Lucas to be Chelsea’s knight in shining armour.  I didn’t want horrible things like murders to get in their way.  I didn’t want Lucas to have to be worried for Chelsea.  I didn’t want Chelsea to need protecting.  I say I didn’t want these things but I mean that in the way that I wanted Chelsea and Lucas to fall in love and for that love to blossom without the scent of badness, craziness and horribleness tainting it.  In the end I’m glad it did include these things as it made Spoilt all the more better.  Not only did I have a romance to read, couple that with a thriller and I was left with a book which didn’t want to be placed down on a bench for any length of time.

Now, on to the crime side of things.  First up, I thought I knew who the killer was.  I had made all the arguments for and against this person in my head and I thought I was pretty smart.  I don’t think I’m giving anything away here by letting you all know that I am obviously not as smart as I thought I was.  I loved this about Spoilt.  I don’t particularly like it when I’m reading a book and have already guessed the ending by the start of the third chapter.  As for the murders, they’re not exactly of the nice kind (if there is such a thing) but they definitely show what must be Joanne’s good imagination.  There’s no way I would ever want to be by myself if I were a female character in Spoilt.

All in all, a good quick read which kept me interested until the end and beyond.

My thanks to Joanne for providing me with a copy of Spoilt – thanks, Joanne!

Check out Joanne’s author profile by clicking here