Engrossing mystery from an Amazon ALL-star Best-selling author.You will never guess the ending!Am I pretty? Imagine being asked that question standing face to face with a killer. What would you answer? While her life is going from bad to worse, journalist Mary Mills receives a phone call from her father telling her that her brother has been arrested for murder. Mary decides to go back to her … Mary decides to go back to her hometown of Cocoa Beach, Florida, which she left twenty years back and has never visited since.
Working with her old friends from the 7th Street Crew, she tracks down the most disturbing and surprising killer this town has ever faced before a shocking conclusion turns everything upside down for them.
Determined to solve the murder and to have her brother acquitted, Mary is forced to face demons from her past she never thought she would have to again.
˃˃˃ What Hurts the Most is a chilling, fast-paced story of murder and revenge.
It’s the first in Willow Rose’s new series about Mary Mills and her childhood friends from 7th Street. It is full of the twists and turns that Willow Rose is known and loved for by readers all over the world.
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Mary is having a bad week. She’s been fired and her much younger brother is in prison for murder. Determined to prove her brother’s innocence, she packs up her son and her dog and travels to Cocoa Beach, where she grew up. Her estranged husband is now living there, as well as most of her high school friends.
The story changes time frames and perspectives quite a few times and from reading other reviews, this is confusing to some readers. This is a technique that the author frequently uses and she starts each chapter with a heading that allows the reader to keep track of the story line changes.
In addition to the murder that brings Mary back to Florida, there are other, seemingly unrelated murders happening.
Mary is also dealing with issues with family dynamics. Basically, there is a whole lot going on.
I enjoy Willow Rose’s books so I was happy to plunge into this one. I would recommend this story only for mature readers because of the violent content. I listened to the audio version, which was very well done.
Most of us remember high school with it’s groups. There were the very popular people, the not so popular people, the nerds and the really bad ones that most of us tried to stay away from. Well Cocoa Beach High has them all!!
Mary Mills had left Cocoa Beach but when she received a phone call from her father that her brother was arrested and was being charged with murder–she had no choice–back she went!
Now something horrendous had happened back in her high school days (you will have to read this novel to find out what)–but her crowd was still there and they eventually all get together to try to exonerate her brother.
Meanwhile there is a killer on the loose—everyone thinks that they have figured out who it is–they are wrong. And as for her brother–she got him out of jail—but—-
The twists and turns in this one will have your head spinning and some of it will have your skin crawling as if spiders were walking all over you! One thing for certain–you will never guess the ending!!
I have bought the other books in this set. Great book. Willow Rose is my favorite author. All her books are fantastic.
What Hurts the Most – review by Rosemary Kenny
Whew! Such tension, terror, breath-taking treachery and twisted machinations in a group of teens, persisting into adulthood…my teeth are gritted so tightly together, after reading What Hurts the Most, by Queen of the Night Terrors, Willow Rose, that it’ll be a miracle if I don’t need repair work from my orthodontist!
If you like psychological revenge thrillers (whether movies or novels) like The Wild Ones or Girl, Interrupted, you’ll absolutely adore Willow Rose’s thrilling, chilling and sensationally scary What Hurts the Most, Book 1 in her outstanding Mary Mills Mystery series, as much as I did.
Guaranteed unputdownable and highly recommended as a 5-star winner – grab your copy today!
Let me first say that the story was great. It was a lot to keep up with at times, with bouncing between years, but still quite enjoyable. The writing, however was not. It was very juvenile and I found myself rewriting it in my head. Instead of reading “it is” or “I am” my mind was saying it’s or I’m. That’s what got me through. That is the only reason this book gets 3 stars. The story itself was intriguing and suspenseful. It kept me on the edge of my seat with wanting to know who the killer was. Good book if you can get past the writing.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It’s an exciting thriller that blew me away at the end. This is a mystery-thriller that makes me wonder how does Willow Rose come up with all of these stories that fascinate me so? It’s really rather incredible to have found an author every bit as exciting as Stephen King. I am so glad to add another book by this author to my ebook library. I look forward to reading the rest of her books.
I absolutely love Willow Rose! She has quite a number of books out in several different series and I look for her in Bookbub. I download each and every one of hers and always enjoy them. In her book “What Hurts the Most” she has written a plot(s) so interwoven that there is no way for the reader to guess the outcome. Her writing style typically contains 4-5 different story lines that are intertwined but they don’t actually come together until the ending. Perhaps if I continue reading her books I will finally catch on but as of now – nope!
love love love Willow Rose……GREAT characters and lots of them Don’t usuALLY LIKE ‘time jumping’ plots but this story was so good and written so it all went together easily – characters worthly of following