ARC Review: Clear My Name ⁣by Paula Daly

Shelly's Book Corner received a review copy from Amazon Vine and voluntarily provided an honest review. This does not affect the opinion of the book or the content of the review.

When Carrie was accused of brutally murdering her husband’s lover, she denied it. She denied it again when they found her blood inside his house, again when they put her in front of a jury, and again when they sent her to prison. Now she’s three years into her fifteen-year sentence, gradually losing hope and separated from her pregnant daughter, but she is still maintaining her innocence. Tess is the only paid employee of Innocence UK, a charity that helps clear people wrongfully convicted of crimes, and which accepts Carrie’s case. But can she trust Carrie? Tess is no starry-eyed recent grad—her assumption is that “they’re all lying.”

Meanwhile, Tess is also paired with Avril, a naive young investigator-in-training, with the hope that by mentoring her, she can eventually double the group’s investigative workload. But Tess unexpectedly bolts when she’s tipped off to a witness that could possibly prove Carrie didn’t commit the crime. While Tess and Avril work the case, re-interviewing witnesses and testing assumptions made at the time of the arrest, the tension ratchets up in both the case and Tess’s personal life.

Review

This was my first time reading this author and it wasn’t a bad read but I didn’t love the book either. I found the characters to be bland and one dimensional except for Avril. I like Tess but she was hard to connect to as I read the story and if I can’t connect to the characters and/or story it doesn’t make for an enjoyable read for me. I liked that there was a point of view from the killer but I wanted more from the night in question. For a thriller this story was a little on the dull side. The writing was strong which is why I kept reading but I felt the ending to be rushed and it definitely felt lackluster in my opinion.