She even managed to address the Breaking Bad connection.

85. Theme Music – T. Marie Vandelly

At first, mostly due to chapter length – which is like 20 pages per, yikes – I did not think I was going to like this book. I thought I was going to have to say, why didn’t anyone mention how chapter length can help with pacing in this author’s first published book? How did it not come up? Thankfully, later on, things started moving. I still am not a fan of chapters over 10 pages in any book that wants to thrill, however, there is more to like in Theme Music than dislike overall.

I think this author made good by creating a modern domestic thriller that’s way more interesting than other modern domestic thrillers I’ve read about people being rich and having affairs and that leading to entitlement murders. So much of domestic abuse and murder between couples/families is really about entitlement, as in feeling entitled to do whatever you want and also control someone else’s ability to do whatever they want, like if they, say, wanted to divorce you or not be strangled or leave their millions to someone else. Theme Music has one hell of a domestic murder and the family involved doesn’t have an estate and yet, still manages to keep a variety of fun secrets- there’s even a secret keeping selfish aunt who manages to seem much more well rounded by the end of the story, so, yay, character development!

I also think that it’s because the domestic elements are so well thought out that the ending bothered me. Not the main twist. And because this book is WAY newer than most of what I review I’ll be a bit kind with spoiling it and just say the kitchen possession twist, which is both specific and vague. It made more sense to me when there was a hallucination element present.

The whole thing is also really gory and I really appreciated that. Things that hurt, hurt. Things that are sticky and terrible were sticky and terrible. Broken glass didn’t magically go away. Also, very horrifying for anyone with allergies and asthma – mildew smells! They haunt the furniture in this book and my nostrils and the part of my brain that knows I’ll encounter them again. It’s a good thing this book was new. I get very disappointed when the 80s and 90s novels I buy turn out to smell and I have to set them aside in my unfortunately nonarchival decontamination system for months before I can read them.

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One father who never murdered anyone, Mortemer, with his biggest baby girl Pickles and Mama Murderface.