Book Review - In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

Title: In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
Series: -
Author: Ashley Winstead
 
Description: Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has planned her triumphant return to southern, elite Duquette University. Everyone is going to see the girl she wants them to see, confident, beautiful, indifferent, not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather’s murder fractured everything. Including the tight bond linking the six friends she’s been closest to since freshman year.
 
Ten years ago everything fell apart, including the dream she worked for an the relationship with the one person she wasn’t supposed to love. But not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone left Duquette ten years ago, and not everyone can let Heather’s murder go unsolved. Someone is determined to trap the real killer, to make the guilty pay. When the six friends are reunited, they will be forced to confront what happened that night, and the years’ worth of secrets each of them would do anything to keep hidden.
 
Review: “In My Dreams I Hold a Knife” is told in dual timelines, as we travel back to University with Jessica Miller. Ten years ago, her senior year was tarnished when her roommate Heather was brutally murdered. The case is unsolved, although the police had a suspect, their wasn’t enough evidence to link the crime to him. Most people still believe that he, Jack, is guilty, but Jessica never did.
 
Jessica goes back to the university for a reunion, finally getting together with all her friends from those days. These friends were responsible for her best and her worst days, so she says. And many of them haven’t quite moved on from Heather’s murder. They are getting ready for the truth to be told, about what really happened to Heather all those years ago.
 
I always enjoy a thriller with dual timelines, slowly unfolding the story mystery. That was well done. It had suspense and tension enough for me to keep reading. The characters though, were highly unlikeable, I didn’t care for a single one of them. Not even Heather, the murdered girl.
 
When I heard this book had a big twist, I was excited, but wasn’t really that surprised when it was revealed. But right at the very end, Ashley Winstead added another one, which made me like this book a bit more. For me it was just meh up until then, that final twist made me add a half star.
 
I believe “In My Dreams I Hold a Knife” is a great book to start with, if you haven’t read many mystery thrillers yet. And it’s an enjoyable read. But not satisfying enough for a more frequent thriller reader like me. I read somewhere that “The It Girl” by Ruth Ware did this theme better, with an even better twist, so adding that one to my never ending TBR.
 
Rating: 3/ 5