Review: Cut & Run by Abigail Roux and Madeleine Urban

I liked this novel over all, but not enough to fall in love: 3 stars.


Cut & Run ended up on my to-read list because it's won several awards and is consistently among the recommended books I find scattered around the internet. I wasn't disappointed, but I wasn't wow'd either.

I felt both the main characters were very strongly developed. From the beginning they have distinct and fun personalities that naturally clashed; the best kind of setup for an 'opposites attract' story. About half way into the novel I'm hooked, the characters are connecting with each-other and the plot is getting tense.

When things fall apart between them, the story also takes a turn for the worst. The characters develop to a point that they effectively swap stereotyped rolls which I found to be very appropriate given their experiences. And the relationship between them also faltered as it should.

However, there was no time dedicated to the characters in their new personalities in order for me to re-connect with them or to make their romantic re-connection believable. The story never recovers from this. The romance is appropriately stilted from the trauma of the plot but there was never enough time to settle into their new reversed and/or damaged personalities. It became all about plot and significantly less about characters.

Also, this book is co-written between two people and it really shows. The point of view is all over the place, often switching without warning from one paragraph to the next. This breaks the flow of reading and also causes some awkward pronoun issues. It constantly bothered me. The POV issues really stuck out in the second half when the personalities changed so dramatically that I couldn't rely on body language or dialogue content to clue me into who was doing or saying what.

These two issues really prevented me from getting lost in the world and devouring this story, which is unfortunate! The worldbuilding is excellent and the character dynamics were consistent throughout the novel. I very much enjoyed the investigation procedures (even thought the 'ah, ha' moment was deus ex machina). I thought pacing and tone were excellent across the bar. There are a lot of great things going for this story.

TL;DR: 3 Stars. There are some big craft issues but the important stuff was done right. I'll pick up book two, but I'm not sold on the series.

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