I just had a really hard time getting into this one and couldn't finish it fast enough just to say I finished it. The writing is not terrible and it's an interesting concept but the characters themselves made this difficult to enjoy.

i enjoyed this book, I had actually read this before and reviewed it. It was a great concept as I really think there could be a Donner Party movie with children as all the characters.

Black Veil
I was really intrigued by the idea of this book, told in two story lines- All kids cast of Donner Party and the people who are making said film. This is a very grisly and gory book through most of it. It seemed to tame down after a bit then gets suspenseful again.

If you can stomach gore in books then I'd recommend this for you!

The cover art by the way is absolutely stunning, is it not?

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

History, especially California and US history, are right in my wheelhouse. This is probably as a result of teaching them for the last quarter century. One of my favorite, and frankly a favorite of children over the years, is the story of the Donner party. You'd think it would be a great background for a movie. It never seems to work out that way. Here we have a movie being made of that story and someone is killing off the stars to sell footage of the murders. It just didn't work for me. The action seemed to be moving at a fast pace between the movie script and background story but it never really pulled me in. There was no tension and no real character development. I was hoping for so much more. I can say that it was a quick read.

Black Veil has an amazing sounding premise - I love books that are about movies and add in some "based on a true story" like the Donner Party into the mix and I'm all for it. Unfortunately this ever so slightly missed the mark for me in terms of delivery. It could have done with some more thought towards character development which would have made it easier to connect with the book and as with any book with split plots, you always end up favouring one over the other.

Black Veil comes together through the telling of two parallel story-lines. One movie is being made, a retelling of the Donner Party tragedy and another more disturbing type of "movie" is being filmed behind the scenes. The synopsis of the novel had me PUMPED! History meets potential snuff film in the making may be the easiest way to describe what I was expecting from this novel.

BUT in the end...…

I was left with mixed feelings about this book, there were parts I loved ( like the donner party) and parts that I just didnt care for. I think my biggest issue with this book is Flor. I absolutely hated his character, which is fine he is the bad guy after all. But there was NO development of his character at all or any character for that matter. I have no idea why Flor was such an sadistic asshole and frankly I wanted to know. I think that the lack of character development led to my huge disconnection with this book.

Unforuntately, this again was a book that I had high expectations for but fell a litle short of delivery. That aside...the cover is stunning!

I recieved a digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.