Damaged: Pamela Callow

Book 1 in the Kate Lange Thriller series.

This series starts off in what feels like book 2.  Kate has recently changed jobs, broken up with her fiance and bought a new house.  So the reader is thrust into her turmoil from the very start.  As if this were not enough, Kate also has a guilty past she's trying to rise above.  Every. Single. Minute.  She's either wallowing in the past or fretting over present decisions and how they will affect the future. The only moments she is in the 'now' are when she's in danger or jogging.  There's only so much inner life the reader needs to be privy to.

Descriptions are hazy at times, some effort is made to make one man remind her of another-or maybe the first guy IS the guy?  Other than they are both blonde, there's not much else to go on as the reader. In another scene in her pantry, I read it over and over and could not picture what was going on, the description was not painting a picture.  That happened a few times other through the story, too.

The scenes between Kate and her ex (because of course they have to interact) read like watching a toddler play with magnets.  Attract and repel like a yo yo, he can't get beyond her past-which has nothing to do with her now at all.  A sinner of a father and a stupid teen mistake.  Should those really affect the way other people love you 15 years later?  I'd have kneed him in the balls myself.  I found myself flat not liking him and so the scenes were not exciting at all.

Now, complaints aside, the plot DOES pick up pace and Kate on her own and not brooding (read:in danger) is a good character and she develops once away from the ex, the bosses, the dog walker (all men-the only women in the book that got more than a quick mention are A) the one who betrayed her B) the elderly neighbors C) a funeral director) then she makes decisions quickly, takes action (in heels, UGH) and is generally a far more interesting person to read about.

By the end of the book, the writer seems to find their footing and the characters trot along nicely on that path she creates, leaving me to hope that Book 2 will pick up that pace and be more story than backstory.  Don't give up on Pamela or Kate too soon, I think they are both going somewhere.