Look at all the snow we got last night! We awoke to approximately 5 inches of snow on our deck. Luckily, the mailman delivered this beautiful new Colleen Coble book last night, so I grabbed it as soon as my eyes opened!

Disclosure: I received this title from BookLook. Post contains affiliate links; opinions shared are mine.

While my husband drove around to survey the roads, I settled under a blanket to read Because You’re Mine. The main character, Alanna, was the lead singer in a Celtic Women-esque group.  When her husband was killed in a car bombing, Alanna has to make some tough sacrifices to escape the evil clutches of her territorial father-in-law.  Creepy, huh?

I love suspenseful stories and have really enjoyed Coble’s books in the past Unfortunately, Because You’re Mine was a disappointment.  The story fell flat within the first couple of chapters, and the “mystery” was so predictable that I couldn’t believe it was actually that obvious.  Add to that, Alanna just wasn’t convincing as a main character.  Her bad decisions seemed so outlandish that I couldn’t believe it.  For example, her romantic interests wavered between three men in a 5-month timespan. Should we blame it on the hormones, or the romance of historic Charleston?  And who isn’t scared by a guy who got caught throwing kittens to a gator?  Sheesh.  Fascinating side characters (not all of them human) were introduced, but fell by the wayside as the story went on. It’s too bad, because they seemed to be more interesting than Alanna.

The Irish characters spoke in a Gaelic-inspired version of English, frequently using slang words that, presumably, were meant to make the dialogue sound more authentic.  Instead, it got pretty annoying.  I don’t think I’ve ever read the word “gobsmacked” four times in a book before.  The sentence structures and verb variations seemed to stilt the fluency of the writing, and took away from my enjoyment of the story.

Now, there were elements of the book that did appeal to me.  Coble’s story takes place in a spooky, dilapidated mansion that housed a banshee. Pretty cool!  The ethereal music of violins and crystal clear voices seemed to play through the pages; I think it would be really neat if there was an online component that played off this part of the storyline.  Brief snippets of scripture and prayer were mentioned in the book, but it’s not essential to the plot. Overall, Because You’re Mine had a lot of potential, but it’s going on the favorites shelf.