First and foremost, let me say this is more of a direct note to the publisher/author than a true review. I don't normally write my Netgalley reviews like that, but in this case, I think it's the best and easiest way to do things.

Secondly, I can't guarantee there won't be spoilers. In fact, I'm almost positive there will be, so consider this your warning before you decide to keep reading.

Now, with that in mind, here are my general thoughts:

This book wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I expected more horror and psychological fear. This was not horror AT ALL. It's more of a Southern gothic romance mystery with undertones of mysticism. At its core, it's a love triangle. In fact, it's two love triangles that span different generations in the parallel lives of the main character and her ancestor who was the recipient of the original curse that has been passed down from one generation to the next.

Now, all that sounds fine ----- IF you like Southern gothic romance stories. I'm not super thrilled by them. Ha. So, in essence, this book wasn't my cup of tea. Still. My lack of a glowing review and multiple stars has nothing to do with that. Typically, if I read a book that's not my usual style, I rate it purely on the merits of the book, not whether or not I enjoyed it because I don't think it's fair to rate a book badly simply because I didn't like that particular type of book.

And that brings us to WHY I gave this book a less-than-stellar two-star rating. Let me break down the reasons one by one:

1. The book had some INCREDIBLY CHEESY plots, "twists," lines, and situations. There was a lot of groan-worthy overdone romance novel tropes and straight-from-a-made-from-TV-movie dialogue. It was definitely enough to make me cringe.

For example, at one point, the MC breaks down and tells her love interest that she can no longer be with him because she knows he's going to leave their small town, and she just can't bear to lose him, so she's preemptively breaking up with him. (A head-scratcher, I know.) But that's not the worst part. Several pages after that speech, her love interest is about to leave her house -- where he had, of course, shown up drunk begging her to take him back because she is THE ONE for him (keep in mind, the MC is still in high school and the love interest is in his first year of college, which makes all this drama even worse). Anyway, I digress.

So, he shows up drunk; the MC's grandfather insists that he leave and "come back and talk again when you've both cooled off." (No problem with the underage drinking, eh, Pops?) And the love interest actually says, "If you can't bear to watch me leave, then now's the time you should turn around."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The cheese! The cheese! I'm literally drowning in the cheese!

And that is only ONE example of the terrible cheesiness of the book.

2. The MC makes absolutely ignorant freaking decisions. Without too many spoilers, the premise is this: The MC is cursed -- the most recent in a long line of females in her family to be so. The biggest part of the curse involves her sleepwalking out to the swap at night, where she will eventually end up like her mother. (People believe her mother sleepwalked? sleptwalked? into the swamp and drowned.)

So, she knows that the sleepwalking will result in her death. Luckily, though, her main love interest finds a way to help her. He installs time-release mechanisms that make it impossible for her to leave her room at night. Win win! Only.... not. Because she stops setting the safeguards because, and I quote, "Sleepwalking feels good!" (Her exact response, given in a whiny, 16-year-old-not-getting-her-way screech, to the love interest who, mortified and flabbergasted (rightly so), demands to know why she stopped setting the safeguards.)

Yes, folks, that's right. She knows that her sleepwalking condition will result in her death, but she purposefully does it anyway because "Sleepwalking feels good!"

SMDH!

3. The editing on the audio format of this book is really bad. It's choppy and obviously edited together in some spots. However, the biggest issue came in chapter 9 with the line, "He took pride in her affection for him." Something happens in that chapter, and that line is literally repeated - just randomly between other sentences -- about a dozen or maybe even two dozen times. I don't have the exact dialogue from the book, so I'll just use another book as an example of what I mean. (Remember, I'm using another book -- one that I have sitting beside me -- for the words. But this is how the audio book spliced in that sentence.)

"On the day it began, Detective Amanda Beck was technically off work. He took pride in her affection for him. She slept late. Having been woken in the early hours by the familiar nightmare He took pride in her affection for him. she clung to thin threads of sleep He took pride in her affection for him. for as long as possible, and it was approaching noon by the time she was up and showered and making coffee. He took pride in her affection for him. He took pride in her affection for him. A boy was being killed, but nobody knew that. He took pride in her affection for him. In the middle of the afternoon, Amanda started out on the short drive to visit her father. When she arrived at Rosewood Gardens, He took pride in her affection for him."

You get the idea. I thought my app was glitching. So I shut it down and restarted it THREE TIMES, and the same thing happened every time. I even went back after finishing the book and listened to chapter nine again, and it did the exact same thing. It even stopped for awhile in the middle of the chapter. Like, there were one or two whole paragraphs that didn't have the line, and then BOOM - He took pride in her affection for him.

It was.... really bad, and I'm not sure how the editing team didn't catch that in post-production.

And if, for some reason, saying that line 12 to 24 times was intentional - I absolutely DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY. It does NOT come across as intentional AT ALL, and there is nothing else even remotely like it in the entire book, so yeah. I'm 99.9999999% sure that it was just poor editing.

4. The ending was weak. I get it. The whole point of the book (again -- look away if you don't want spoilers!!!) is about overcoming generational curses. And yes, it's supposed to be very relevant to the author's real life journey of overcoming generational trauma. But it fell totally flat. It wasn't a strong ending at all, and it made the rest of the book feel even more like a giant waste of my time.

So, with all that criticism, why did I rate it 2 stars instead of 1? Here were the good points:

1. The narrator was excellent. The book is set in the South, and being from the South myself, I typically HATE hearing narrators pretending to be Southern. They always make us sound like horrible redneck hicks who live in broken down trailers. Not this narrator. She was truly exceptional. I'm not sure if she, herself, is from the South, but if not, her accent was entirely believable. She was truly a treasure, and more people should have her narrate their books.

2. Despite the cheesiness -- and let me repeat, there was A LOT of cheesiness -- many of the characters were actually pretty relatable. They felt like real people, not caricatures of real people like some books' characters are. They were well-written, nicely rounded, and they had depth. (Not all of them -- there were a few that made me roll my eyes at how totally "bad guy" they were. But for the most part, the characters were very well done.

3. Sitting down and writing a book to completion and then sending it out in the world to be judged by people like me is HARD! Anyone who can do that has my respect, regardless of whether I liked their book. That alone is worthy of at least 2 stars.

Whew. That was a lot. Hopefully, the publishers/editors/author takes all that in the spirit in which was meant -- constructive criticism meant to improve, not insult. Also, I apologize for any grammatical errors/typos/etc. This one was a bit longer than most of the reviews I write, so I don't think I'm going to go back and do a read-through for grammatical mistakes.

Finally, thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins for giving me the opportunity to read this book for free. Even though it wasn't my cup of tea, I'm very grateful for the opportunity.

I couldnt finish this. I was so bored. I got about 20% through it twice and had to re listen to it because I was spacing out.
I just couldn’t connect.
Rating 3 stars to keep it neutral.

DNF at 10%. The story was kind of intriguing and I'd be interested in reading it physically later, but I didn't like the audiobook narrator. Her voice was lovely but how she was reading the story didn't work for me. I will try the physical book eventually though as it sounds good.

Thanks to Harper Collins Christian Publishing, Thomas Nelson Publishing, NetGalley, author Caroline George, and narrator Hallie Richards for the advance copy of this audiobook. Based on some of the authors family history the women in this story are compelling and quite interesting characters. I was swept up in the story and felt as though I was being a witness to the events that happened to them. It is such a fascinating experience to witness a part of history, even mixed with fiction, from the perspective of women and how they have become stronger in their roles in life was refreshing. I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to Caroline George, NetGalley and Harper Collins Christian Publishing for the opportunity to listen to this intricate tale of a young woman who is determined to break the curse that has plagued the first born female in her family for 7 generations beginning in 1855.

The curse becomes true around the 18th birthday of each of these young women and Susana Prather is determined to break this curse. The night of her 18th birthday, or the deadline as she puts its, finally arrives and she goes to sleep. When Suzanna wakes up she is covered in water and has no recollection of sleepwalking. So she has to hides things from her family. Her family is hiding things too! What is it going to take to break the cycle?

This tale set in the deep south really hits home. So many of the 'sayings', 'words of wisdom' and 'wives tales' have been used in my home over the years.

"Life is what you make it, but not everyone receives the same material."

This was a beautifully narrated novel with a multi-generational story, with romance, mystery and suspense, while at the same time being a wholesome, Christian book that covers issues that young people in today's world deal with.

I listen to this in one night and I thought it was atmospheric, scary, and so beautifully narrated, I was so enraptured.

this was intriguing, fresh, and original. loved the twangy country side atmosphere! definitely a good listen