What Never Happened

by Rachel Howzell Hall

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Ginasbookreport Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
Genre: Mystery / Thriller / Suspense
Read This If You Love: Lisa Unger books

“Colette Sienna Weber of Los Angeles California, is no more…We warned you, Colette. You f@#ked around, and you found out.”

Sometimes you read just the right book at just the right time. This was one of those books for me. The day was a strange thunderstorm in the middle of winter and I wanted to curl up in the dark with a creepy read. What Never Happened was perfect reading for a spooky storm. 

Colette “Coco” Weber returns to Santa Catalina island 20 years after she was the only survivor of a horrific murder. She’s back to escape a bad relationship and rebuild her life. Her new job has her writing obits for the local paper and she quickly starts to see suspicious deaths of elderly women. She’s not sleeping, her paranoia is building, and she sets out to prove that just because you are paranoid, it doesn’t make you wrong that something else is happening. 

Howzell Hall masterfully uses frenetic writing to convey Colette’s building desperation. Set during the beginning days of the pandemic, it is the best use of the pandemic as a plot device that I’ve read yet. It serves the purpose of ramping up even more pressure on the island. The suspense in What Never Happened had me on the edge of my seat and I found the novel to be an intriguing page turner.