Wow. The writing in this is superb. I knew I’d love this book from the first chapter. It’s dark, it’s sad, it’s psychological, it’s brilliant.

The analysis of sentences, body language, appearance, etc by Maggie throughout the book is provocative. The way she perceives and analyzes the world is beautiful.

The way she wrote the description of Maggie for us - the reader - was a new approach that I loved. It starts with a recounting of her tattoos, then her piercings then

“she stepped closer to the mirror - hello there Maggie Moore”

followed by a description of Maggie. Then throughout the rest of the book the characters are described through Maggie’s unique processing that almost reads like an official law enforcement description:

“Black
Early forties
Wrangler boot-cut pressed jeans
Rattlesnake belt
Black cowboy shirt, white trim pockets, pearl buttons
Black alligator boots
Bulge on his hip: 38 no doubt”

Please check trigger warnings before reading.

Maggie has had some tough luck and she’s a bit of a mess. I love how she puts her word brilliance to work to help solve crimes. I love how she diagrams sentences (English major here). Some of the subject matter was dark and disturbing. I like her relationship with the cop, Jackson, they make a good team.

2.25 stars

The concept of someone using linguistics to solve crime, a la the unabomber case, is so interesting, so I was excited to read this. Maggie is a 21-year-old graduate student who gets asked to assist with a police case involving linguistics, studying threatening text messages to try and identify the perpetrator by their spelling, contents, and word use. Cool, right?!
Unfortunately, Maggie is the worst, and not in a way that's fun to read about. She's got extreme substance abuse problems and regularly self-sabotages, and she's very hypocritical, working to solve cases involving crimes against children while being friendly with multiple men she knows pursue minors. She's suspicious of everyone except for people who actually mean her harm, and can't get out of her own way. 

Additionally, for a book thats entire premise is how important word choice is, some of the mechanical writing was just odd, and the plot was not much better. Connections in cases were made very easily and conveniently, serious content was brushed over casually, and I'm still not over the sentence where Maggie described learning how important words were in English class at age 12 and "holding them closely like a lover". At 12. 
The actual linguistic analysis in this was interesting and I will probably look up more information about the field after, but this book was not for me. At least it was short. Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Wordhunter by Stella Sands was such an exciting and thrilling story.
The quirky characters were entertaining and the writing was fantastic.
A fun and intriguing story from beginning to end.

Wordhunter is an entertaining story with a fascinating premise and an engaging, flawed heroine who seems to be a total mess but will, win your heart and admiration by the end. Younger readers in particular will love Maggie.

It was fun to read a wordy take on criminal investigation! Despite worrying for our main character, Maggie, who doesn’t always make the best decisions in caring for herself, the reader definitely feels for her and wants her to succeed. She’s crazy smart, which is always nice in a heroine. Both storylines, that of the missing little girl the police have asked Maggie to consult on with her forensic linguistics expertise, and that of Maggie’s difficult past and her current conflict with her professor, are both quite compelling. I must say, I wasn’t shocked to find out “who done it,” but I can’t tell whether that was disappointing or just satisfying…

I haven’t actually read Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but this strikes me as something you might like if you liked that series. The leading ladies certainly share some similarities.

Young, smart, and brash, Maggie Moore should have the world at her fingertips. Instead, she carries her emotional baggage like it's her job. She drinks too much, smokes too much, works overnight hours at a cheap diner, and tries to ignore the everything holding her back.

One place she does allow herself to excel is the college classroom, specifically the forensic linguistics course. Ever since she was in middle school, language just made sense. Words and phrases slot together in perfect and personal ways. They just make sense for her.

When the mayor's daughter disappears, the local police ask for her help in analyzing the notes left by the abductor. Her professor, and law enforcement, think she can offer insights they are missing. She acts as an unofficial profiler considering the perpetrator's vocabulary and choice of phrasing.

The investigation also allows her to revisit the unsolved disappearance of her best friend when they were children. Maggie employs both official channels and a fresh approach to her memories of that traumatic time.

As a character, Maggie feels almost too messy -- like a central Floridian Lisbeth Salander. She has been through a lot, no doubt, but it does feel like overkill at some points. During one series of clue chases, she stays awake something like four days straight, yet she still manages to attend class, finish assignments, chase bad guys, and work at the diner. It isn't necessary to exaggerate her disorderly life.

It's an interesting read, using a new aspect to enter the genre of police procedurals. It's not always narratively satisfying but agreeable enough.

3.5 stars

I have to start off by saying that this book will absolutely not be for everyone. In fact, I think it may be for a very specific kind of person but I have no idea who that person is. This story is told in such an interesting way. We are following our main character, Maggie, who is studying to be a forensic linguist and who finds comfort and understanding in constantly breaking down and analyzing sentence structure and meaning. This is something we actually see throughout the book as we are privvy to the actual dissection of sentences that Maggie is working on. Eventually, Maggie gets pulled into a wide array of dangerous situations and we watch as she struggles to get herself out of them.

I think that the unique writing style of this book is going to throw a lot of people off but it also had me completely hooked in the beginning. However, things go so completely bonkers in this book that I'm still not sure I can wrap my head around everything. Maggie finds herself involved in multiple criminal cases with the local police force as well as an increasingly worrisome relationship with a professor and it all felt like too much. I think that the author tried to have too many situations going on at once and we never got enough attention dedicated to any of them. All of the plot points fell a little short because none of them got enough time.

This book is also, inherently, full of flawed characters. There is no perfect character in this book. There is no one to really root for. All of the characters make a ton of mistakes throughout the story and I know that is going to drive a lot of readers up the wall. And, as I said before, I think that each of the mysteries and situations Maggie found herself involved in was compelling and interesting, but we should have focused on just one and really pulled that apart. Also, the ending. The ending was the worst. I get why the author did it but it felt like the most unsatisfying variety of an open ending and it will surely piss plenty of people off especially with how surface layer everything felt throughout the whole book.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing me with an ARC review copy of "Wordhunter."

Stella Sands' debut fiction novel packs quite a punch. In only 256 pages, she creates characters that are extremely complex, and terrifyingly human. The way she uses dialogue to differentiate even the most minuscule of details between characters is breathtaking. I was really surprised by how fast this moved. I felt greedy for each new chapter. Sands used her presumably immense crime knowledge as a true-crime writer to delve deep into a mystery in a real, lifelike way few authors can. Congratulations!

This was an exciting book delving into the world of forensic linguistics as well as a thrilling hunt for a criminal. I thought this books was well done although it was a little disjointed in places I was able to later piece it together. I'm hoping this will become a series.

Have you ever read a book and hated the protagonist at first but by the end you had grown to love them?

Usually, when I don’t like a protagonist I don’t change my mind. In Stella Sands’ new book, Wordhunter, I found myself in a rare position regarding the novel’s protagonist, Maggie Moore: I spent almost the entire first half of the story not understanding her and actively disliking her. However, by the end of the story I was of a mind I could read another novel full of Maggie Moore solving crimes with forensic linguistics while smoking Camels and drinking Bud and be happy as a clam. She’s such a refreshing female protagonist for a crime procedural thriller with her Gen Z way of looking at life and people and her concentrated rage at men and authority figures. Maggie has more than enough trauma for a salad all on her own, but it’s clear she just wants to compartmentalize it and move on because who the heck doesn’t have a boatload of trauma, especially if they’re female?

Wordhunter doesn’t live on Maggie alone: This novel also has a great idea and story behind it, with some spectacular plotting by Sands. Linguistics and forensic linguistics are things that have always interested me. Those two things were what attracted me to the book in the first place and I was so happy to see they weren’t just a gimmick or cheap trick to get people to read the book. Wordhunter is filled with a ton of small lessons in linguistics, movie quotes, book quotes, true crime facts, forensics knowledge, and just interesting bits of trivia slung around here and there that were effective in keeping me entertained and engaged should the story slow down. Geography and demography also play large (if not explicit) roles in this book as the differences between the regions of Florida come into play as to who might live where and for what reason.

There are some potential triggers in this book: drug and alcohol use/abuse, an overdose, SA (adult, but not explicit), association with criminals (including pedophiles), discovery of underage photos, child kidnapping, vague descriptions of other SAs (adult), child imprisonment, cult behavior, and description of parental death. I apologize if I missed any.

There are some underlying themes of found family, absent fathers, dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships, and love not being logical in here that are kind of simmering like a broth throughout but never brought completely to the surface. I really enjoyed how Sands didn’t just rest on the main plot and theme to carry this book. She gave Maggie and the other characters a loose framework of tropes to swing around on so there were connecting points to build on. That helped this story out immeasurably in the places where it might have felt a little thin.

It was a great read, and I’d gladly read another book about Maggie Moore.

I was provided a copy of this title by Netgalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Crime Fiction/Crime Thriller/Kidnapping

This was really interesting and I was not expecting the twists. It was so well done, and I was so invested from the start.

Maggie Moore lives on her own in a single-wide at the Royal Palms trailer court—which, she notes, has no palms and certainly isn’t royal. She never knew her father, and her mother died awhile back. Maggie’s been a word nerd since she was a kid, and now she’s working on a master’s degree in forensic linguistics while holding down a job at a local greasy spoon.

Maggie’s brilliance attracts the attention of one of her professors, who hires her as his PA and recommends her when the local police ask for help identifying a stalker by linguistically analyzing his threatening/taunting notes. Maggie’s excited by both jobs and doing well. Is it all too good to be true?

The police ask her to help on a new high-stakes case: a pre-teen girl has been abducted and the perpetrator is sending taunting notes to the police. Maggie has personal reasons for not wanting to work that case, but she’s not-so-gently persuaded by the laconic bear of a detective, Silas Jackson. Theirs is a version of the oddball cop duo, with Maggie being lavishly tattooed, a hard drinker, a nonstop smoker, and diagrams sentences from literary works for relaxation, while Jackson doesn’t seem to have any vices or interests outside police work.

This is an unusual police procedural that should be entertaining for language mavens—though if there is a sequel, it would be great if the plot leaned into Maggie’s skills more.

3.5 stars, actually.

You know the old marketing rule - sell the sizzle, not the steak? Well, this book has plenty of steak. Sizzle? Not so much.

In theory, the unique subject matter alone should, IMHO, make it a shoe-in as the start of a highly successful series - I mean, forensic linguistics? A lead character whose passion is diagramming sentences? Never in my word-loving, wildest dreams! In practice, though, the story screams for more character development, cohesiveness and, for want of a better word, pizzazz.

Here's the scoop: College grad student Maggie Moore loves words, and she's studying forensic linquistics. One afternoon she's called into her professor's office, where he says the local police need help with a cyberstalker who's been sending threatening texts and he recommended Maggie. He follows that up by asking her to be his research assistant. When Maggie agrees - reluctantly - she calls police detective Silas Jackson, who just as reluctantly agrees to let her help. That successful effort comes just as the local mayor's young daughter goes missing - a suspected abduction - so Jackson and the police chief ask her to keep helping.

Once again, she's reluctant - mostly because her closest childhood friend, Lucy, pulled a similar disappearing act a decade or so ago and was never found. To Maggie, that was due in large part to a lack of police follow-up, so she's carrying a grudge. But she caves, and begins studying all the written communications from a variety of suspects to gather clues, compose a profile and, hopefully, narrow the list down to one. As she researches, ruminates and rambles through her knowledge base (extensive, but a little convoluted for readers to comprehend easily), her sentence diagrams appear. Those, I suppose, are relevant, but I'll never know because they were too small to read on my Kindle (yes, I could have pulled out a magnifying glass, but that would have taken away much of the enjoyment of reading).

Maggie's been carrying around a fair amount of baggage from her past, and as it turns out, so has Jackson; so of course, they're at loggerheads almost from the git-go. But they manage to hold hands to keep from fighting, and in the process, Jackson agrees to re-look into Lucy's disappearing act. That sets other things in motion, including fodder for the next book (assuming there will be one).

If for no other reason than the intriguing subject matter, I really wanted to like both Maggie and Jackson; but both come off more like cariacatures than real people. Maggie smokes Camels like a chimney, drinks beer for breakfast, has more tattoos than any biker gang and a vocabulary far more colorful than any truck driver I've ever known (I don't have an issue with smutty language, but this is way over the top). Hints of their background stories should have made me sympathize, but the descriptions are so sketchy and disjointed that the only thing I felt was "Okay, so what - you're both grown-ups now, so get over it."

The bottom line for me is this: what's here is a more than respectable start that elicits hope of better efforts to come. I love the premise - and like that spaghetti sauce commercial, it's in there; give the next one some serious polishing, and it's gonna shine. Till then, I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to get in on the action early on by way of a pre-release copy.

An intriguing premise that didn't quite gel for me. Maggie is basically a spin on Lisbeth Salander, transplanted into a Florida trailer park. Given that I enjoyed each successive novel in the Millennium series less than the previous ones, this trope of a young woman MC who is a contradictory mess of genius and damage just doesn't really work for my tastes. Maggie is tattooed, rides a motorcycle, swears up a blue streak, drinks too much, subsists on junk food, and is a linguistics savant. She diagrams sentences All. The. Time., illustrations of which are scattered copiously throughout the novel. Maggie, a graduate student, is engaged by the local police force to help with a kidnapping case, bringing up things from her own past and exposing secrets someone will kill to keep. The mystery/thriller part of the story was well done, and if you do enjoy these types of antiheroines, give it a try. Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial and Paperbacks for a digital review copy.

WORDHUNTER is a delightful read with an unusual, quirky character. Maggie Moore, is a tough, driven, and endearing lover of words and language. who learns to stand up for herself in both her work and personal life. She's a bit of a mess -- but when the daughter of a local mayor is abducted, Maggie is recruited by the police chief to analyze the abductor's notes, which leads to a shocking discovery. The information about linguistics, how we talk and write unintentionally reveals a lot about who we are and where we come from is delivered with a very light and readable touch.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: Aug. 6, 2024
Non-fiction author Stella Sands has taken her first foray into fiction with “Wordhunter”, a clever and engaging detective story for fans of Dan Brown and Stieg Larsson.
Maggie Moore is tattooed, pierced and a bit of a misfit, but she has a way with words and can solve just about any linguistic puzzle. Maggie has helped the local police force before, bringing a stalker-turned-rapist to justice so when the young daughter of a small-town mayor goes missing, Maggie is again asked to assist. However, Maggie feels that this case strikes a little close to home, bringing back reminders of the day when her childhood friend disappeared, and she is reluctant to help. But a little girl’s life may be at stake and everyone is desperate- can Maggie put her own past behind her to save a child’s life?
“Wordhunter” is smart and well-formed and Maggie gives off solid Lisbeth Salander vibes, with her tattoos and her brilliance. Right away, I was pulled into this novel, trying to solve the crimes alongside Maggie, and rooting for her eccentricities and talents.
I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle solving component of this novel, as well as the police investigation and the kidnapping. There is a storyline that revolves around Maggie’s professor, which, although suspenseful and powerful, seemed irrelevant to the story. Socially awkward loner Maggie is recruited by two female friends who we haven’t before met, to go after a professor for reasons I won’t give away. Right around this part of the novel, Maggie’s conversational style changed, and it seemed that “Wordhunter” was going on an entirely different path. Once this storyline had been solved, I was pleased to return to the puzzle and crime solving aspect.
The novel hints that a second story, and possibly more, are incoming and I hope that that is the case. Although some of the conversations are simplistic and rudimentary, and some of the plotlines don’t quite fit, I think with some careful tweaking, Maggie and her wordhunting ways would be something I’d keep reading!

Using forensic linguistics to hunt downñn criminals? I’m in.

This definitely feels like an entry book to a series. With that being said, I wonder if it’s strong enough to get readers connected. While I really love delving into the study of forensic linguistics and having a main character who uses language and literature as a safe space, there were moments I felt like another reader may not have been able to connect with her or appreciate her talent because it wasn’t as thoroughly explained as it could’ve been or explained in a way that was reader-friendly.

There was also a lot of extra plot, storylines, and characters that felt unnecessary for what was supposed to be the main mystery. Our main character, Maggie, is a student who has been recommended to consult with detectives on a stalking case due to her savant-like skills with word analysis. Her successful discoveries on the initial case leads her to be utilized on a larger kidnapping case that shakes the nearby town and local community.

While we’re seemingly focusing on this larger case, we have a case from Maggie’s past involving her missing friend and the missing friend’s mom. Then, they throw in a situation with her professor, which not only felt extremely predictable but also seemed like it was done for filler and shock value. Not to mention the messy romance *eyeroll* as if to remind you, or excuse certain behaviors, due to her age. Italmost felt like the author took you on all these side quests and then wrapped up the book.

As a lover of puzzles, true crime, and mysteries, I was really interested in seeing where this ended up. However, the book spent a lot of time on Maggie’s promiscuity and the descriptiveness of her somewhat messy life. It feels clear that the author is using this book as a starting point for readers to grow with Maggie as she moves into the next chapter of her life.

A lot of the book is about what Maggie wants to do next after she graduates. Some of the side quests feel semi-resolved and it seems like Jackson and Maggie’s relationship is just forming. We’re unraveling parts of Jackson’s past that we’ll likely learn more about in future books. So, I am glad that I read the book because forensic linguistics is not something I see explored often, but I hope to see more focused pursuits and less distractive characters and dialogue in future installments. Especially in a book where linguistics is key.

Puzzles and an entertaining storyline is enough to keep you going and thinking in this thriller. I definitely enjoyed.

Loved parts of this book so much! I enjoyed the words, the forensics and the mystery-solving. Other parts such as the diagramming and the professor plot were overdone and repetitious for me. Fun concept - needs refining to tie the story together better.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Perennial and Paperbacks for the opportunity to read this ARC.