About all I can be bothered to say is this was really disappointing. When you find yourself wanting to smack the majority of the characters it might be a sign it's time to let go of a series...

 

                                     

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

 

I am so annoyed at myself. So I like most of Susan Hill books so I saw this on NetGalley and went gimme without realizing this is part of a series. I really wish that NetGalley would let you send books back. Totally my fault, and for now on I am going to cross-reference books on Goodreads to just check for things like that. That all said, I can't really help here at all. Since this is book # 10 I was totally confused about past events and who was what and why things were important. I loved the cover though! Seriously though this dragged for me at times and I found myself rushing through it. 

 

"The Benefit of Hindsight" follows DCS Serrailler after he has has returned to work after losing one of his arms.  With crime rates down, Lafferton has been quiet, until one night when two men open their front door to a distressing scene. Serrailler makes a serious error of judgment when handling the incident, and the stress of this, combined with the ongoing trauma of losing his arm, takes its toll. 

 

So Serrailler seems like an okay character. I don't know what to say here since this is the first book starring him I have read. All of the characters seem fine and have past and current connections. I did like that Serrailler messes up and the book follows through on the theme on in hindsight what could he have done better. 

 

I did like the writing and thought the flow was fine. I just was not engaged since I came into this series at book #10 and did not care about the characters in the same way I would have if I started off with book #1. Because of this, I am going to go back and read this series and will update this review after I finish books #1-9. 

I haven't read the first two books in this series and while this can be read as a standalone novel, I felt that I was missing something through most of the book. Perhaps the history between the characters would have been helpful to keep me interested.

Not having history with the characters was a detriment to the story for me, however the characters were well developed individually. There was enough reference to their personal histories that I felt like I knew who they were. Doyle was interesting, rough around the edges and constantly putting herself in harms way. While that could have easily turned into too much risk, it teetered on the edge of reasonable for me so I enjoyed it.

Lord Acton was a bit elusive but Anne Cleeland did a great job with giving you his intentions even if she wouldn't give you his innermost thoughts. Along with the other characters, it was a well rounded cast of law enforcement and criminals all privy to their own set of moral judgement. As with real life, judgement isn't one person's job.

There were a few twists and turns that were unexpected but all in all this just didn't hit the mark for me. If you have read the first two in this series you would probably enjoy this book. It was well written and the plot flowed nicely.

 

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was not monetarily compensated for my opinion.

So today I was reading and watching a marathon on VH1 of all the episodes of SNL that Justin Timberlake has hosted when I saw a commercial for a new tv show, Hindsight. I am not completely sold on the plot of the show but I did get to see this lovely specimen of a man:

 

(photo courtesy of Hindsight's Twitter page)

 

His name is Craig Horner and he plays Sean on the show. I may have to watch this show when it premieres just to see him. How did I not know about him?

This book has become one of my comfort books over the past couple of months. Which is a little odd because I haven't been a fan of time-travel romance in recent years.

Whether or not I'm gonna dig time travel now, I'm definitely a huge fan of this book. There's something so real and so sweet about Sarah Belle's writing style that sucked me in the minute I looked at the first page.

Maybe its the fact that I moved to Saudi Arabia and experienced a very real "time travel" back to to the 50s/60s, living in an expat compound but I could relate to the heroine Juliette so much. The secondary characters are amazing, making everything so convincingly three dimensional. Loved them!

I have this massive thing against spoilers so I don't want to go into the plot but I really would encourage anyone who wants a warm book that will give you that roller coaster laugh-cry thrill to give this one a go. It was worth it and I can't wait until Ms. Belle's next one because I'm getting to the stage where I almost know Hindsight off by heart.