Book Review: Girl Number One by Jane Holland

Girl Number One had all the makings of a great mystery/thriller, and I downloaded it immediately after I read the synopsis. The book was available on NetGalley and I do believe it was a “Read Now”, so there was no need to request and wait to be evaluated by the publishers.

Check out the Goodreads synopsis:

As a young child, Eleanor Blackwood witnessed her mother’s murder in woods near their farm. The killer was never found.

Now an adult, Eleanor discovers a woman’s body in the same spot in the Cornish woods where her mother was strangled eighteen years before. But when the police get there, the body has disappeared.

Is Eleanor’s disturbed mind playing tricks on her again, or has her mother’s killer resurfaced? And what does the number on the dead woman’s forehead signify?

Girl Number One started out great. There is an eerie well-written prologue of Ellie at six years old and her mother’s violent death in the woods. Then, the book goes forward to 18 years after the mother’s death and even then, Ellie’s discovery of another body in the woods, I got pumped and excited but then not so slowly the book became predictable.

The book is a whodunit. And soon the reader wonders if the narrator is reliable or completely crazy. There is a long cast of creepy potential suspects but then I figured it out half-way through who the killer is.  So then I was determined to know that night if I was correct, all the while hoping that I am wrong. As I read, I kept thinking, this book could not be that predictable. So I read the entire night to just see the end of the story. And sadly I was right, the murderer was who I assumed, and yet, I feel as the motive that was described was so strange.

I have read on Goodreads that other Jane Holland books are pretty good. Has anyone read this book? How was it to you? What about other Jane Holland books, any recommendations?

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!