The Shadow Box by Luanne Rice

The Shadow Box Reviews

• 
  Booktastically Amazing

  (This review is not means to insult the author in any way, it was just a matter of opinion and how I felt after reading it. I'm sure the author is a wonderful being!)
  
  [Update: Dear GR, please stop giving me ads saying how amazing this book was. I already read it. I already suffered. What more do you want from me??]
  
  *slow clapping* And once again, great way to start the month.
  
  On to a book slump, I guess.
  
  You know those books that stay with you, and you obsess over and basically, would sell your life to have all the editions of that book?
  
  Well, this wasn't that type of book.
  
  This was the type of book which I had low expectations going into and got out with even lower expectations. (how the heck is that even possible-)
  
  In other words, this is going to be a rant.
  I hated this so much
  
  Beginning with the matter of inconvenience that had as many holes and imperfections as my confidence on Mondays, the wonderful plot. (Picture that statement with someone over dramatically presenting it)
  It was nonexistent.
  
  Moving on-
  
  Haha, surprise! It actually was present, and devoid of any brain cells whatsoever. So, okay, of course, going into a thriller book with more than three-star rating is somewhat of a struggle, since my hopes and dreams (daydreams to be exact) usually get thrown up into Olympus to then descend lower than my will to interact with people.
  Which this book obviously accomplished to do.
  (one of the few things it excelled at)
  
  See, we alllll know, Griffin (the MC's husband) is the killer, right? It is plain and obvious. What do the detectives in this novel do? Investigate the husband of a presumed dead victim? Even though he has money and connections, someone still has an inkling of common sense and decides to search up Griffin's background? Nahh, let's just THROW the logical things out (like, their ability to think), and settle into a different sort of outcome. Let's just allll say Claire (the useless MC), was attacked by some 'unknown' attacker, who then flew the scene and left it all in disarray.
  
  
  *me shaking my head in disbelief*
  
  
  I just didn't get the whole purpose nor lack of rationality that lived within these pages. First, the MC gets almost killed by the husband (it isn't a spoiler, thank goodness) then someone somewhere gets killed because of something else. A lot of affairs. Dumb twists and basically zero to no thriller aspect in it. Helllooooooooooo, this is SUPPOSED to be a thriller. Not a parody of Telenovelas or Soap operas. Psh! As if.
  The only plot twist was me not throwing this out the window.
  
  
  Jumping on to the next rantiful topic (as this book did. It didn't walk, no, too slow. It JUMPED, right into the Bye Bye bin) the writing.
  Well, it was nice, unless you count the drastic amount of awkwardness which everyone spoke in. Forget Spanish, English, French, or any other language (I would include all but I don't want anyone to feel excluded), let's just introduce something else, Awkwardness.
  Here I shall paste some examples taken out of the many bountiful dialogues I found supremely intriguing, in this story:
  
  “Mommy, Daddy, don’t fight!” Gwen said. Charlie clung to Sallie.
  “Let’s go for a ride, kids,” Dan said. “And we’ll get ready to go to Block Island. Maybe we’ll play mini golf and get an ice cream. Mommy’s not going to come. She has other things to do. But we’ll have fun, Gwen, Charlie—I promise.”
  Is it me? Am I the problem here? Gwen is almost ten years old. This came out of nowhere.
  
  
  “Hi, Sallie. Alexander’s worried about his brother,” Claire said.
  “Sallie said he drove away drunk yesterday,” Alexander said. “Aren’t you worried too?”
  “Yes, I am,” Claire said.
  “She wrote him a note,” Alexander said. “I want her to tell us what’s in it—she was the last one to see him. It could give me a clue.”
  “Alexander, that’s between Sallie and Ford,” Claire said.”
  This is so uncomfortable. Sallie and Ford sound like an automobile company. No offense to those named like that, by the way. The characters just annoyed me a lot.
  
  
  “I’ve read a lot about domestic violence over the years,” Claire said. “Your clients post on Reddit. On the dark web, too, I suppose. You help victims get away.”
  “I never call them ‘victims,’” Spencer said. “They are so strong. They have gone through hell—a hell they entered out of pure love. Abusers are weak. They trap women who have gigantic hearts, who want to help these poor, sad wounded birds.”
  “That’s what I think too,” Claire said, nodding. “I’ve always believed we have big shoulders.”
  Did I read that wrong or did Clair just contradict herself?
  
  And those are a few of the instances that began to create a book slump out of thin air that would later smack me at the end of the book. And not with a donut in hand.
  
  The first thing that came to mind with the characters were the words: emotional carcasses.
  As I mentioned before, lots of deaths were involved in the story, lots of betrayals, and one would expect emotion, right? At least a speck of it. Nope, wrong. None of that was made available, I literally thought that I was reading about rocks and even those nonliving materials are more interesting than the lot of people that were actually ‘people’ and not cardboards.
  Who would’ve thought-
  
  
  Read More
  ----------------------------------------------------
  
  Okay, quick question.
  Why is everybody in thriller novels married?
  Is that a warning in and of itself??
  
  Do you take this man to be your husband?
  Yes, I do. But wait, is he going to murder, dismember, threaten, cheat and basically make my life hell?
  Oh, he is?
  Well, whatever, let me just sign this real quick
  
  I-
  How-
  
  The logic confounds me.
  Needless to say, I am so reading this.
• 
  Margaret M - Hiatus - I will respond when I can

  “I doubted most of them realized that emotional abuse was as devastating as physical—the scars were just as painful, but they were internal, where people couldn’t see.”
  
  Griffins Chase is a leading candidate for state Governor and a powerful man among the upper echelons of society in Connecticut, where he spends his life defending the rights and treatment of women. With a public façade that is carefully choreographed and with most of the police force on his side, Chase is the least likely suspect of his wife’s attempted murder.
  
  However, behind closed doors, Chase is a very different man, he is psychologically abusive, distant, and unsupportive but is he behind the violent attack on his wife where the would-be killer walked away thinking she was dead? His wife seems to think so.
  
  With the attack happening days before Claire’s eagerly anticipated art exhibit – of the Shadow Boxes, which tells their own story, and the death of one of her friends, Claire is forced into hiding until this dual investigation concludes. But what if she is wrong about her suspicions of her husband and the real perpetrator has lured her to a dangerous place of hiding, or can she trust her husband who after all would not jeopardise his campaign with unnecessary scandal. Claire must decide if the man behind the mask on the evening of the attack was her husband or has, she made him a convenient suspect, because of his dark past, bullying ways and the underlying problems in their marriage.
  
  As I was drifting towards a satisfying conclusion and sinking down into a relaxed pre-sleep state. Wallop. The book revealed a twist that whacked my senses awake and I found myself sitting up to wonder how on earth I missed that shocking revelation. However, I am delighted to say, I suspected the wrong person. In fact, the twist at the end was excellent.
  
  The Shadow Box is a very credible and compelling psychological thriller, it is written and read with ease, a great plot and twist with very good characters and one I would recommend.
• 
  DJ Sakata

  This masterfully crafted tale was disturbingly realistic and thrummed with tension from beginning to end. The pacing and storylines were cunningly conceived and shrewdly constructed for maximum impact with cringe-worthy depictions and blood-chilling reveals. My curiosity was well and truly tipped. I fell right into this distressingly addictive story and was fully absorbed and ensnared by the horror of the victim’s conundrum as well as awed by Ms. Rice’s clever and evocative phrasing and brain-tickling narrative. This was devastatingly intriguing storytelling as it hurdled toward either discovery or impending doom for all involved. It was marvelously disorienting. I am now a rabid fangirl.
  
• 
  Jess

  Good enough for me to want to know how it ended, but that’s about it.
• 
  Sarah

  For my full review, visit me at
  https://mrsbrownsbooks.wordpress.com/...
  
  I eventually got bored by this “reverse crime” novel. I found the narrative prolonged, I grew to care less and less about the double police investigation and thought the story lacked a pace I was looking for.
  
  For my full review, visit me at
  https://mrsbrownsbooks.wordpress.com/...
• 
  Gail C.

  Abbreviated review: Excellent mystery that will leave you guessing about everything. Who is the murderer is the least of the questions. What other crimes have been committed? Who are the "good guys" vs. who are the "bad guys." How do two apparently unrelated events tie together? Those are just a few. There are also questions about the exclusive community in which the two main characters live, it's residents, the activities they conduct, etc? No hints should be given in any review, because this is a book best experienced "in read time". Attached is a link to a more complete review.
  Link to full review:
  https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/re...
• 
  Jamie Jack

  Never Connected with the Story
  
  The opening scene for this book is shocking and confusing, the latter for both the reader and the viewpoint character. The author chose to open the book with a pivotal scene where the main character is being physically attacked and then is left for dead. The author did her best to affect deep characterization, showing what the character was thinking, experiencing, and feeling. But it did not pull me in, no matter how dramatic it was, perhaps because it is written in the first-person present, which I always find distancing. I think authors believe it is more immediate, putting the reader in the moment, but I do not find it so. After this first chapter, I was disappointed that the author, for whom this is not a debut novel, chose to start each viewpoint character’s chapter with rather prodigious information dumps. I believe that skilled authors can artfully weave in backstory and present circumstances; the dreaded info dump is not necessary and highly disliked by most readers and publishers. So, these info dumps combined with a first scene that didn't hook my interest made it hard for me to connect with the story. In the end, I don't think I ever did.
  
  I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.
• 
  Tim

  A couple reviews thought highly of this story. Apparently, my expectations are more adrenaline laced than some others. Made it 1/3 through before DNF.
• 
  Theresa Alan

  The storytelling of this novel is decent, but the writing is not great. The plot is that artist Claire is attacked and left for dead. Because her wealthy and powerful husband has many members of the police under his control, Claire doesn’t know who she can trust as she hides out and tries to heal from her wounds. She wants to prove that her husband committed a horrible crime twenty-plus years ago, but hiding out, she doesn’t have a phone or the internet. I liked the characters of the cop Conor and his brother who works for the coast guard, Tom, and Claire’s girlfriend, Jackie, but something about the writing just fell flat. For some reason a lot of the characters had first names that could be last names and the author would sometimes refer to a character by his first name and sometimes by his surname. This is not a book you read for quality prose.
• 
  Deb

  A thrilling ride!
  
  From the first paragraph this is a gripping story and I couldn't get enough. Power and money the biggest corruptions too tempting to resist. A family and power mongrels are determined to have Griffin elected Governor at any cost. People disappearing and covered up murders. A psychopath in its truest form is shown by Griffin. A young girl so selfless and pure not willing to give up on her brother being alive and of course her loving dog. A wife suspected of being murdered rising from the dead. A must read.
• 
  Robert Dugoni

  Nobody writes domestic thrillers quiet like Luanne Rice. Great read
• 
  July

  I'm not sure if this book classifies itself as a mystery or a thriller, but to me, it doesn't belong to either category. Why? Because you already know who did the deed in the very first chapter, courtesy of the narrator and main protagonist, Claire. She tells you outright that her husband is behind her attempted murder, and the next couple hundred pages don't do anything to change that belief, only to cement it.
  
  So this book is not a whodunit, as we already know who. It's eventually revealed that it wasn't her husband Griffin who personally carried it out, but he had a huge hand in planning her murder because she was going to ruin his chances of becoming governor of Connecticut by exposing him as the murderer of her best friend, who also happened to be his ex-girlfriend.
  
  It's not really a howdunit either, because as much as Griffin Chase would like other people to believe, he's not a genius, and his plot is just so ridiculously stupid. It reeks of someone trying to be a wannabe killer, but effed up so bad that it made it easy to catch him, since he involved way too many people in his murder scheme. Even worse, they failed to kill their intended targets the first time around, Claire and Dan, and instead caused the death of an innocent person, Dan's wife Sallie. For someone who is supposed to be a brilliant prosecutor, it really doesn't seem like he is one, based on how the story unfolded. The first rule in killing people (do not try, of course!) is to involve as little people as possible, because people talk. It's obvious that the more people know about your secret, the more likely you'll get caught because they can't keep their big mouths shut. Or they'll screw up, because you can't trust everyone to be as careful as you are, and then they leave a trail of evidence and witnesses behind, which is what happened in this case. Police aren't dumb, you know.
  
  Claire tells us that her husband said to her that he'd never made such idiotic mistakes if he were in the defendant's shoes, and being a prosecutor taught him to perfect the art of the crime. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, so it's easy to say that, but come on. There were so many utterly stupid things he did. Let's see what they are.
  
  1) Leaving Spencer alive. Why. He knew that her friend Marnie had drowned, because she had been trying to escape from him after he raped her. He also knew that Spencer knew who he was, and that she was almost also raped by his friend Dan. He should have killed her too, but instead, he killed Ellen. Granted, he wasn't a prosecutor then, but if he was so concerned about his public image, he would have retraced his steps and eliminated Spencer as his top priority, not Claire. Claire only guessed what had happened, but she has no evidence, and it's all conjecture on her part.
  
  2) Using a knife on Claire. Oh my god, this was so dumb, because he literally said in the story that he would never be so stupid as to use a knife to kill someone. And then he does, for the kicks of scaring the daylights out of her. First, it may leave DNA if the killer wounded himself, which didn't happen here, but you know, killing never goes as expected, so why would you, if you knew there's a possibility of it happening? Second, the killer used it to scare her, because she had said she's scared of knives, but was that really necessary? When you try to be fancy and metaphoric in killing, you screw up. As a result, her DNA was all over the knife when there was no reason for it at all. Third, now you have an extra crap to dispose of. Unlike common household objects, it's pretty easy to identify knives as they're potential murder weapons, so finding a bloody one is like screaming "OMG I did something bad with this here knife!" So guess what happened? Some kids find the bloody knife (you didn't even clean it, what the hell, Mr. Prosecutor?) and that lead the cops to find even more incriminating evidence. Hah, and you said you learned from the guilty party's mistakes.
  
  3) The elaborate killing of Claire. Ok, so Griffin has an airtight alibi for the time when Claire was supposedly killed. But why did the killer who was not Griffin (Or was it? Eh, who cares?) do so much random crap when he should have just strangled her? He beat her up on the head, choked her, then used the knife to slice up her arms, and then hung her on the rafters, which then broke, allowing her to survive and escape. What the heck? You know that's four ways to kill a person, but way too many, right? Just stick with one. Variety is not the spice of death. This is why his plan is ridiculous. If the killer had just gone through with any of the first three assaults, Claire would be dead. Instead, she lived because the killer just couldn't choose the best way to kill a small woman who can't even fight back. Sigh.
  
  4) He involved the whole gang. Or otherwise known as The Last Monday Club, an ultra secret club of wealthy misogynistic men. Except it's not that secret. Even the local newspaper knows the name of the club, and the fact that it's supposed to be a secret. That's when you know that you've failed at being secretive. And you also have two members who are parading around wearing the logo of said secret club. Headdesk. Not only that, but he strung along the children of the members of this club in his evil plot as well. I guess he's raising the heirs to fill their shoes, but you must know that teenagers can hardly be trusted with getting things done right, especially things like murder.
  
  5) He kept the children of Dan and Sallie alive. I don't know what the heck was going through his mind when he decided that. Ok, so you want to be governor of Connecticut? That's a pretty long official position to hold if he had won. The children witnessed everything, and know all the major details of what he planned. They know that he was planning to kill Dan, and also that he wanted to get rid of Claire. When they are older, they can spill the truth to someone and his image will be completely ruined, if there hadn't already been other people that lived through his terribly thought-out schemes to begin with. He's left too many victims alive, and that's what ultimately brought him down. So yeah, I don't see why he bothered to keep these two kids safe if he knew they had the possibility of talking, which was the whole point of why he wanted to kill Claire and Dan to begin with. They gave some lame excuse like he didn't want the children to be abandoned like he was, but hello they know everything, so you should just kill them too? It's not even like he has a soft spot for children, anyway.
  
  6) The already-dug out graves. Who does that? Why would you dig out a grave-shaped hole to fill with a body? Is it economical? Dig an early grave, get 20% off on suspicion towards you? I don't get it. And let's point out that the graves aren't located in remote places at all. One is nearby the lodge the club hunts at, and the other is in Dan's yard. Yeah, this just boggles my mind. This is screaming, "I'm going to kill someone soon™!"
  
  That's just the list off the top of my head. There's probably more errors he made, but these were the most glaring ones I remembered. This is kind of like those horror movies where the main character does everything you're not supposed to do to survive, except it's for a killer who doesn't want to get caught. It's a huge trainwreck, and it's obvious that his plan was going to crumble one way or the other, because it's just full of holes like Swiss cheese.
  
  Besides Griffin acting like a numbskull, this book was just full of things that just didn't jive with me.
  
  The most offensive thing was the non-linear timeline. The story starts with Claire recounting the attack as it happens, I guess to hook the audience. Then it backtracks to several days before the incident. After a couple chapters, it jumps forward. And then back. We have constant "X days before" and "X days after" and at first, I couldn't tell if the after was supposed to be after the previous chapter about it being before, but then I realized it means before/after the incident in the first chapter. I think they should just have put a date on it to make it clear. But, besides the point. The non-linear timeline was confusing as hell and also pointless. It wasn't executed well at all.
  
  The constant switching of perspectives made it worse. I'm reading about Claire being all happy in the past, and then to Sallie, who I already know is dead. Like, why do I care about her POV? She's dead, and the mystery isn't who is behind her death. Actually, there was no mystery at all to begin with, because it's all Griffin anyway. The story doesn't try to give us a red herring. We know it is Griffin as Claire had already told us so from chapter one, and if it's not him, it's his club members. The actual who did the killing isn't important, since it all ties up back to him running for governor, and his loyal lackeys who'd do anything to make sure he succeeds.
  
  I actually think the story would be far more interesting in chronological order, so we could at least wonder if the two women's incidents were related, but as it's presented here, we know that it's a sure thing. You see, if the multiple perspectives happened linearly, we'd be wondering how the two women's stories tie into each other, but the author showed her hand too early, and in the wrong order, so it didn't work for this story. What's more annoying though, is that all the other characters think Claire is likely dead, and then we have every other chapter with Claire talking in first person about how alive she still is, so it just completely defeats the point. Honestly, if you had eliminated Claire's POV, this story would be more thrilling, especially if we didn't know she was alive. That would have been a cool twist.
  
  Another thing with this book is that there are way too many characters, with extremely boring names that made it hard to keep track of, and they're all somehow related to each other. I think by the end of the second chapter, with Conor's perspective, we have been introduced to over ten key people in the span of a few pages, and several chapters later, we're treated like we know and remember who these people were. Well, I certainly didn't. I had to use the X-Ray function of the ebook to figure out when the character mentioned appeared, and what their role or relationship with someone else was. And what's even worse, sometimes these forgettable characters were the main perspective of the chapter, even though they're not one of the main characters in the story. The only perspectives I cared about were those of Conor and Tom, the two detective brothers who were investigating the two separate incidents of the two women, but piecing it together to get the bigger picture that it was all related to Griffin Chase. Everyone else's story was just unnecessary, or too convenient, serving as single-use info-dumps.
  
  Like Spencer, for instance, whose role was so specific, and by all cases, shouldn't even be alive to do any of the things that she did in this story. Like I said earlier, Griffin should have tracked her down and silenced her early on. She's not exactly in hiding, nor is she off the grid. With Griffin's supposedly wide network, she'd be easy to catch. Like with her posting very telling comments on the Facebook page and putting up stalkerish photos of Claire online. Who does that? It should be easy to track her IP address. And one of the crazy lackeys of his directly messaged this person as well, and should know that this online person is a viable threat to his campaign. It certainly didn't take Claire any real difficulty to contact her, so I don't see why Griffin wouldn't have lured Spencer out to kill her too, if he was so scared of Claire spilling some beans with no evidence whatsoever. Allowing Claire to learn the story of what Griffin did when he was a college boy didn't change the story, and didn't thicken the plot. It's all just in a day's work for this busy murderous, psychopathic prosecutor. It gave her some crazy foolhardy courage to go back to her house (seriously, why?) to almost get killed by her husband the second time.
  
  I can't even suspend my disbelief at how stupid Claire is. By all accounts, she should be dead too. She's constantly traipsing around the woods and the beach near her house, and somehow her all-controlling husband doesn't know where she could have gone, like she never told him that she has a secret cabin in there, where she spent most of her childhood. Then she goes to the tide pool where she and Griffin found Ellen's body, which he already knows is one of her favorite spots, he's caught her there on multiple occasions. But there's more. She even goes inside her own studio, which is right next to where they live together, and does ridiculous things like Googling herself on her laptop and prancing in areas where there's security cameras. She doesn't even do this just at her own house, she goes checking Facebook after breaking into her other best friend's house too. Priorities, right? When you're being hunted down by a killer husband, first things first, must check social media!
  
  That whole Facebook group thing was another pile of crap. I personally can't imagine complete strangers setting up multiple, strictly enforced groups on social media concerning a missing person. She's not really a celebrity, even if she is the wife of someone who would become governor. People just don't give that much of a darn about other people that they don't know in real life. When Claire joined her own missing person group to find the woman posting negative things about Griffin, the whole conversation between her and the admin of the group had my eyes rolling. It was totally unrealistic. And why were some of these people using real names and others using online handles? The Facebook I know doesn't have usernames with random numbers following a name. Not that Spencer was using a very hard to figure out handle, it's just her last name with several numbers after it. It would make more sense for her to use a random string of letters and numbers instead, to err on the side of caution. Seriously, how did she live for so long, I don't know. It must be luck that the villains are as stupid as the heroes, or there'd be no story to tell.
  
  The most disturbing part of the story though was the constant attempts to make Griffin seem nice. Maybe that's not the right way to put it. But it spends so much time on Claire flashbacking to some random happier time when she was having romantic moments with him, and these all ultimately don't tie in with the rest of the story. It would do so in the most inappropriate moments, like when she was about to die, or get discovered, or otherwise doing something more important than reminiscing. Honestly, I wanted to smack her myself, because it was getting on my nerves. There'll some heart-pounding moment (or as close to one as it gets, basically whenever it gets a little interesting), and Claire would just launch into a multi-page flashback without warning, and I would sigh in frustration. I don't know what the author was aiming for. Is it trying to tell us Griffin isn't so bad, that he can be nice and loving, if he wants to? So we should feel a little sorry for him? Or is it trying to save Claire, telling us that it's understandable why she liked someone like him? Either way, I didn't feel it was executed well, and should have been left out entirely. Griffin is beyond salvation at this point, because not only is a he murdering rapist, he's also so scared to get his hands dirty, he's making his own teenaged sons do the killing for him, which is beyond depraved.
  
  The poor women in the story don't get my pity either. Claire knows she's in an abusive relationship, but does nothing, except to continue stroking his ego whenever he wants her to. She doesn't help with raising his sons, so that they can avoid following his awful footsteps. Instead, she seems to drive them to work even harder against her. Not to forget, but she was Griffin's mistress, even when she had been happily married to a guy called Nate. Just because she had lusted after Griffin, for all this time. I find her a self-destructive woman. She brought this on herself.
  
  Ellen, the poor best friend of hers who died a long time ago, is no saint either. She allowed Griffin and Dan to rape two girls, and did nothing but sit in her car. She didn't even try calling the police, or warning the girls that they would get drugged. When Claire brought her up again in the last chapter, I just felt disgust. Ellen is no hero. Yes, her death was tragic, but she doesn't elicit any sympathy. If she had tried to fight Griffin, and died for it, that would be a different story.
  
  Sallie is just as unlikeable. She's a married woman with two young kids, but willingly chose to have an affair. And the story paints her like an angel, because of her love for the color white, which was unnaturally forced upon us in yet another weird flashback. She also drew the attention of a potential psychopath-in-the-making in the form of Griffin's son, Ford. We learn her death was an accident, but she's not an innocent person by any means. She knew that Dan was behind something, but was too absorbed in her own scandalous relations to focus on it before it was too late. It almost got her beloved children killed.
  
  The final chapter was just a I-don't-give-a-crap, or that's what it felt like to me. Griffin throws all his elaborate plans out the window, deciding to strangle Claire with his bare hands in the open space of their yard, where there's security guards and cameras. Claire also did some stupid thing where she emailed her ex-husband Nate saying that she hates him for siding with the evil elite club, all on the basis of having found his autographed books at the manor where they plotted their wicked plans. I don't even know how she came to that conclusion. That's like if someone went to a fan meeting to meet an author, and then that someone killed a person, does that mean that the author supported their fan in killing people, just because they signed one of their books? No! Claire needs this explained to her like she's a toddler, and then she realizes she loves Nate. Sigh.
  
  Oh, and that speech she gave Griffin when he was arrested? Yeah, I get it was supposed to be like a reverse-the-tables power speech, but it just rings hollow. She tells him, "You've been caught by the women whom you've abused" or something to that effect. No, he was caught because he effed up so bad, nothing could save him. Even if Claire and Spencer were dead, the police would have caught him on the plethora of evidence and witnesses he left behind and alive. He even had Dan buried in his own yard. Such stupidity. The police did all the legwork, Claire is just fluffing it up to be her moment, when in actuality, she didn't really do anything. Nor did any of the other women in this story.
  
  When you think about it, it's unlikely that Griffin and his gang will stay in prison for long. They supposedly have a lot of connections and money, so I'm sure they'd be able to pull some strings to get out of it somehow. Wasn't that the entire reason that Claire couldn't show herself, because she knew he'd twist the truth, and couldn't be convicted? I think that got lost somewhere in the middle of the story, as nothing really changed, yet after hearing Spencer's story, she just decided to gun for it, consequences be damned. Griffin can forget about becoming governor for sure, though. I guess it's a bittersweet victory on their part.
  
  Last note, is it just me, or Claire has an eye fetish? It spends a lot of the time describing Griffin's eyes, and how they change color, from green to black, like it's meaningful, but it doesn't bring anything new to the table. She'd be staring at his eyes when she should be concentrating on something more pressing. By the way, Nate's eyes are blue.
• 
  Guylou (Two Dogs and a Book)

  
  
  📚 Hello Book Friends! Some authors have a way to lure you into the story right from the beginning. Luanne Rice is one of them. This is the second book I read by this author and it will not be the last. THE SHADOW BOX was a nail-biting, edge-of-seat, disquieting, and fantastic read. There are a lot of characters in this book, but each navigates the story in their silo, so it is easy to keep track of them. There are many triggers in this book: emotional and physical abuse, rape, and murder. The plot is extraordinary with lots of twists and turns and although you can guess who did the crime, you still wonder to the end if you are right. If you love intelligent and hair-rising thrillers, this one is for you.
  
  #bookstadog #poodles #poodlestagram #poodlesofinstagram #furbabies #dogsofinstagram #bookstagram #dogsandbooks #bookishlife #bookishlove #bookstagrammer #books #booklover #bookish #bookaholic #reading #readersofinstagram #instaread #ilovebooks #bookishcanadians #canadianbookstagram #bookreviewer #bookcommunity #bibliophile #theshadowbox #luannerice #bookreview
• 
  Literary Redhead

  Luanne Rice’s second mystery keeps you gripped by the story of Claire Beaudry Chase, an artist attacked in her Connecticut home. She suspects her estranged husband or his supporters of the crime. He’s running for governor and it’s clear someone is out to muzzle or murder her. I dare you to put this one down until the thrilling end. One wild satisfying ride!
  
  5 of 5 Stars
  Pub Date 01 Feb
  #TheShadowBox #NetGalley
  
  Thanks to the author, Thomas & Mercer, and NetGalley for the ARC. Opinions are mine.
• 
  Mary Jackson _TheMaryReader

  This was such a good mystery and so many elements to the story. All the different characters playing a great part.
  I will be looking for more of Rice's books now for sure.
  4 stars and I think this is one I will read again.
• 
  Lee Goldberg

  Every family has secrets, but in Luanne Rice’s clever thriller, The Shadow Box, the truth won’t set you free—it will put you in a shallow grave…particularly if you live in the posh Connecticut enclave of Catamount Bluffs, where corruption, kidnapping, and murder are only a few of the community’s hidden sins
• 
  Jennifer

  I enjoyed this book immensely. It kept my interest with the jumping back and forth between present and past. I couldn’t quite imagine how it was all going to come together but it did and it was awesome. I can also relate to the domestic abuse scenario. I was not physically abused but I have been emotionally abused and it really is true how an abuser can so subtly erode your strength and your will and make you feel a little bit crazy.
• 
  Jess☺️

  The shadow Box by Luanne Rice is a tension filled domestic thriller which will keep you reading and wanting more secrets, It flips backwards and forwards between the main characters and before and after the attacks which does keep you infused with the story, but personally I wanted to be knocked sideways by some shocking revelation and I wasn't, I also found it to be a little predictable and was left with the " was that all " feeling.
  I would still recommend this because you may enjoy it more and I'm definitely going to read more from this author 📖
• 
  Chandra Claypool (WhereTheReaderGrows)

  I'm typically a paperback > hardcover kinda gal but every once in a while when you casually take a book's jacket off for safe keeping, you get absolutely STUNNED by what's inside. **swoon** Yes, I went from *I to you* in a horribly constructed sentence but I'm still swooning too much to care.
  
  To the book! ----> The opening is quite the attention getter - instantly hooked. ..There is quite the cast of characters and the pacing of the back and forth in different increments of time can be a little off putting. However, once you get used to that, you FLY through the pages. If you read a lot of mysteries/thrillers like I do, then there's really nothing new here. What a fun ride though - think Lifetime or WE.
  
  Grab your bucket of popcorn and enjoy yourself.
• 
  Patricia

  I got this book as an Amazon First Reads.
  The constant change of perspectives was confusing at times, and switching time frames--5 days ago, 3 days later, 1 day later, 4 days ago, etc. was hard to follow and create a time frame for the story. I finally gave up trying, and things got better as far as reading and getting into the story.
  There were a LOT of suspects, but I didn't find it all that distracting, as the story lines all seemed to work for me.
  The second half of this book was a much easier and more enjoyable read for me than the first half, but that was probably a result of my giving up trying to remember what day it was.
  3.5 stars if I could, missing stars for the confusion from changing POV and time.
• 
  Dun's

  This is an enjoyable, gripping domestic thriller full of family and neighborhood secrets set in Connecticut coastal towns. The main character's artwork - shadow boxes - and her connection with nature are very interesting and integral to the story and keep my imaginations in full gear. I will check out the author's other books.
• 
  Nicole

  Thank you Goodreads for the win!! The was an excellent thrill ride. Grabs you from page one. “I died, and I relive my death hourly. Although my absence from the world remains constant, the method changes each time. Could it be that I was strangled, staring past the mask into a emotionless eyes as he crushed my Larynx.”
• 
  Adah Udechukwu

  The Shadow Box was an exceptional read.
• 
  Erth

  I got this as a first reads- I read it in one day- If you like Mary Higgins Clark, Lifetime Movies, and are suspicious of ‘secret societies’; this book is for you!
  Overall I liked it- there were a couple of instances of ‘yeah right’ but overall, it was interesting- who knew CT was so dark!
• 
  Danielle

  I loved this book for its complex plot and mystery of two murders instead of the usual one murder per book. I enjoyed the varying points of view in each chapter as it afforded me the opportunity to view the events of the book in a different light and from a different personality type.
  
  This is not a story told in order but rather sections of the book told in non linear form. For my brain, this was confusing. Adding to the shifts in POVS every chapter, going back and forth between timeframes impeded my enjoyment. I would not say that this is an easy or light book. It required All of my concentration when I was reading it.
  
  I thought the author gave me a chance to play along with the police in solving the murder and the mystery of what was happening. Its not often that I feel as if I have a chance to solve murders in books as not enough crumbs of information are freely given.
  
  I would absolutely read more of this author.
• 
  Chris

  I’m Sorry but this just did not do it for me. The characters were lackluster and the bully husband was a womanizing, political buffoon.
  
  I read through it all, perhaps hoping for a bump in the action, but it was quite bland and predictable.
  
  A disappointment.
• 
  Darinda

  Domestic abuse and family secrets. Enjoyable read. Complex and suspenseful.
• 
  Katie T

  3.5 stars rounded up