ARC Review: Kiss Kill Vanish by Jessica Martinez

Slow built tension, growth, romance and suspense

Title: Kiss Kill Vanish
Author: Jessica Martinez
Publisher: Harper Collins, US
My ratings: 5 out of 5 stars
Releases: 7th October, 2014
I read this book about two months ago and somehow I really enjoyed it. However, I’m a little disappointed to so many below average reviews for Kiss Kill Vanish.

I do realise that my ratings may have come as surprise and it do think the rating are somehow justified but I did enjoy this book thoroughly. Valentina Cruz is on the run. She ran away from home after she realised that her boyfriend is the enforcer of her father who is not an art dealer but in fact a drug lord. Homeless and broke, Valentina manages to get a gig as a model with a rich son to pay off her bills. But soon her past comes rushing in she is on the run again.

I felt sympathy towards Valentina’s situation. She was pampered girl and never gave a second thought to all the money her father showered her with but now that she knows where it all comes from all, she blames herself for playing a part in it. The murder she sees her boyfriend Emilio committing opens her eyes and it gives her night mares. The emotions were realistically portrayed. Yes Valentina was full of self-pity but coming from the upbringing she has had it is easy to see why. It coloured the way she saw the world and how buttered croissants were more important to her that simple bread.

Even if she was horrified by the crime see witnesses she still can’t stop loving Emilio and keep playing the Mandolin in his memory. I fell a little in love with the Emilio Valentina seemed to miss. The way she described Emilio’s beautiful dark fingers playing the mandolin and caressing the instrument made me swoon a little.

However, the cherry in the cake was how slowly Marcel and Valentina fell for each other. It was slow as molasses but they fell in love with each other’s real personalities brought together by grief and necessity.

Valentina grows leaps and bounds through the book and it ends with Valentina finally finding her footing as an independent and strong woman who led an honest life. The writing may not have been for everyone but the relationship between Marcel and Valentina took me by surprise and I found myself stealing time to read and find out how these two people who despised each other manage to turn their feelings around.

Overall, Kiss Kill Vanish may not have the most imaginative name but it was a suspenseful thriller which included character growth and romance in equal doses. For fans of Goths, cartels and weird artists.

ARC received from Harper Collins via Edelweiss