Review: Silencing Sapphire

“She smiled over the ocean of rich and famous.… On the outside, Sapphire Dubois looked the part. From the Jimmy Choos and Dior dress, to the man holding her hand, she gave the impression of the typical Beverly Hills heiress.
…It was a lie.”

This is the second book in a series. This review contains no spoilers for Stalking Sapphire, aside from giving away the survival of two characters in the series.

Silencing Sapphire, by Mia Thompson
#2 in the Sapphire Dubois series
Diversion Books, October 2013
new adult thriller
189 pages (ebook)

As a new serial killer dubbed the “Stripper Slayer” plagues Los Angeles, Sapphire once again sheds her socialite persona, this time to go undercover as a penniless stripper. Struggling to find the brutal man before he slays again, Sapphire finds that the thin wall separating her double life is cracking. Her family and friends expect her to walk down the aisle with the most eligible bachelor among the Beverly Hills elite; a man she doesn’t want. Meanwhile, the man she does want, handsome Detective Aston Ridder, is making her life hell as he closes in on the Serial Catcher’s trail.

Sapphire scrambles to keep the chaos at bay, unaware that someone else is tracking her as well. A serial killer from her past is back and will stop at nothing to get his vengeance.

 
*** I requested this review copy through NetGalley. ***

 
After reading Stalking Sapphire earlier this year, I was curious to see how the series continued. It was an interesting concept, not to mention one of the few “new adult” books I’ve seen that isn’t all sex and romance (though there was a bit of that), and I liked the idea of it. And the first book, while coming to a satisfying conclusion, left several threads hanging at the end.

Silencing Sapphire, on the whole, wasn’t nearly as good. The mystery felt generic. The threat from Sapphire’s past was lackluster as well. The novelty of a rich girl who fights crime on the side was no longer a novelty, and I just wasn’t getting anything out of it. There were several moments in the first half of the book that I nearly set it aside.

But I powered through.

And in the end, I was rewarded for my persistence. I got some of those more personal answers that I’d been hoping for. More twists were thrown in – some obvious and inevitable, others less so. And the ending was nothing like I’d expected.

This series is more a guilty pleasure than a new favorite. But whether I want to be or not, I’m hooked.

Silencing Sapphire is available in print, as well as for Kindle, Nook, and other e-readers.

Does this sound like something you’d pick up? How do you feel about the new adult genre?

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