Masterful: The Complete Series

Wow. Just wow! This series (now the Cold Little Games series) is unlike anything I have read in the YA genre, and 24 hours after finishing it I’m still in its thrall. Wow. Just wow. Complex characters, unexpected and sometimes shocking plot links and twists, and vividly described settings are all things I have come to expect from this author. This series felt like a book within a book within a book, because each of the three books felt distinct as family trauma unfolded within a mystery story of stolen diamonds, desperate schemes for survival, and murdered mobsters. Felt is the key word here. I loved the emotional journey(s) of the sisters in first book, and of the two men who become integral parts of their lives in the second and third books. I loved, but felt battered by, the intensely painful ways in which they tried to control their lives and work themselves out of the chaos of their childhood. The books were written in such a way that sometimes I felt like I was standing on a TV show stage with Ivy, or on a cold institutional bench with Aster, struggling along with them to find some way to gain control of situations that stripped them bare and challenged them to find people to trust (who are few and far between).
At its core, this is the story of twin sisters, Ivy and Aster, who have been raised by a schizophrenic single mom. When book one opens, they are high school seniors. There are multiple POVs throughout the series. In the first book we see through the eyes of the sisters and their best friend, Joshua, the boy next door. Until two-thirds of the way through the first book, I thought this was a story of a family crippled by mental illness. The mother loathes Aster and loves Ivy. Ivy has to navigate her relationship with her sister who is torn between the two. I was blown away by seeing how Aster and her mother, both semi-medicated, perceived one another through the lenses of their illnesses, and how we learned about them through Ivy’s eyes. At times the story was hauntingly poignant.
Two-thirds of the way through the book, the over-arching mystery story begins with the introduction of a new character. His connections, to the family and to some bad guys, sets up the whodunit that drives the mind-bending mystery and twisters and turns of the next two books. In the second book, Ivy and Aster have been separated, Ivy to pursue her dream and freedom from her past on a reality art talent show. Aster finds herself completely disempowered in a situation of her own making (murdering even a bad guy just isn’t smart). The girls are both alone in their respective circumstances and have become embroiled in a complex web of lies, deceit and organized crime. As is typical of this author, the secondary characters are really, really great, whether they were good or bad or inbetween. Do we like and trust Chase or Brook? That’s a head-spinner.
Book three takes us down another path in which the story is no longer told by the sisters but by a good guy, Joshua who is now a police officer, and a bad (sort of) guy. The mystery that was unveiled in books one and two unfolds with shocking moments in Ivy’s and Aster’s worlds. The two men struggle with their feelings for the girls and undertake a desperate mission to save them from mobsters. The story is gripping and complex throughout the series.
No love triangles, no smut, multiple POVs, heartbreaking resolution. Loads of feels.