ARC Review: Thicker Than Water by Brigid Kemmerer

Title: Thicker Than Water
Author: Brigid Kemmerer
Publication: December 29th 2015 by Kensington Books
Genre: Young Adult ~ Paranormal
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Kobo
Rating: 5/5

     

On his own

Thomas Bellweather hasn’t been in town long. Just long enough for his newlywed mother to be murdered, and for his new stepdad’s cop colleagues to decide Thomas is the primary suspect.

Not that there’s any evidence. But before Thomas got to Garretts Mill there had just been one other murder in twenty years.

The only person who believes him is Charlotte Rooker, little sister to three cops and, with her soft hands and sweet curves, straight-up dangerous to Thomas. Her best friend was the other murder vic. And she’d like a couple answers.

Answers that could get them both killed, and reveal a truth Thomas would die to keep hidden…

I had really high expectations of Thicker Than Water because I'm a huuuuge fan of the author's Elemental series. Luckily the expectations I had were more than met. It was a fantastic story and I ended up feeling quite sad when I had finished the book because I just wanted to read more.

Thomas Bellweather  just moved to a new town when his mother got murdered, leaving him alone with his stepfather Stan and the whole town suspicious of Thomas. Everyone seems to think he's guilty except Charlotte Rooker. Although her three cop brothers are warning her to stay away from Thomas, she can't help but being attracted by Thomas and vice versa. When they find some mysterious letters Thomas' mother received things really start to get strange...

There's something about the way the author writes her character that I can't help but love. She especially writes the male characters really well. I loved Thomas and I felt so bad for everything that happened to him and how basically nobody was on his side other than Charlotte and Stan (mostly). Charlotte was also a character that I loved. It's definitely not easy for her to be the only girl with three protective brothers. But I loved how she followed her heart even though it seemed really dangerous at times.

The story was very mysterious and there were so many twists I hadn't seen coming. I kept trying to figure it all out but of course I was always dead wrong. Some plot twists basically kept me glued to my Kindle screen and screaming internally inside — That's how good the writing and story was. 

I also adored the romance between Thomas and Charlotte. It was cute but also a little steamy (in as far as YA can be steamy at least) and I also thought their connection was great, in spite of everything that was happening. Also, it takes a while for all the paranormal stuff to kick in but once it does it's pretty mind blowing!

I also loved the side characters. Charlotte's brothers were all pretty different in their own way but I really liked them. I was also a huge fan of Charlotte's best friend, Nicole. She was hilarious and made me laugh pretty much every time she spoke. And Stan was also a great character because, although he was rather cautious of Thomas, he still made an effort for him because he was married to his mother. Bascially, the author did a great job in writing the side characters too, which is a big deal to me.

What more can I say than that I LOVED this book? Everthing from the story to the characters to the writing to those damn heart-stopping plot twists was pretty much perfect. I want and need more!

       About the Author:

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Brigid Kemmerer was born in Omaha, Nebraska, though her parents quickly moved her all over the United States, from the desert in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the lakeside in Cleveland, Ohio, and several stops in between, eventually settling near Annapolis, Maryland. Brigid started writing in high school, and her first real “novel” was about four vampire brothers causing a ruckus in the suburbs. Those four brothers are the same boys living in the pages of The Elemental Series, so Brigid likes to say she’s had four teenage boys taking up space in her head for the last seventeen years. (Though sometimes that just makes her sound nuts.)

Brigid writes anywhere she can find a place to sit down (and she’s embarrassed to say a great many pages of The Elemental Series were written while sitting on the floor in the basement of a hotel while she was attending a writers’ conference). Most writers enjoy peace and quiet while writing, but Brigid prefers pandemonium. A good thing, considering she has three boys in the house, ranging in age from an infant to a teenager.

While writing STORM, it’s ironic to note that Brigid’s personal life was plagued by water problems: her basement flooded three times, her roof leaked, her kitchen faucet broke, causing the cabinet underneath to be destroyed by water, the wall in her son’s room had to be torn down because water had crept into the wall, and her bedroom wall recently developed a minor leak. Considering SPARK, book 2 in the series, is about the brother who controls fire, Brigid is currently making sure all the smoke detectors in her house have batteries.

Brigid loves hearing from people, and she probably won’t refer to herself in the third person like this if you actually correspond with her. She has a smartphone surgically attached to her person nearby at all times, and email is the best way to reach her. Her email address is brigidmary@gmail.com.