"Colette Iselin is excited to go to Paris on a class trip. She'll get to soak up the beauty and culture and maybe even learn something about her family's French roots.
But a series of gruesome murders are taking place across the city, putting everyone on edge. And as she tours museums and palaces, Colette keeps seeing a strange vision: a pale woman in a ball gown and powdered wig, who looks suspiciously like Marie Antoinette.
Colette knows her popular, status-obsessed friends won't believe her, so she seeks out the help of a charming French boy. Together, they uncover a shocking secret involving a dark, hidden history. When Colette realizes she herself may hold the key to the mystery, her own life is suddenly in danger."
With a title like Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer, I wasn't expecting much to come from this book. Still, I was intrigued to see how the direction of the story would go. Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender, is about a ghost getting revenge on the bloodline of the people who wronged her during her time in need. While the story was a quick read, it could have been quicker. I feel that Alender dragged out the story, filling it with historical content rather than building up the mystery between Paris's shocking murders.
Now don't get me wrong, I am a fan of historical subject matters and appreciate the detail and the culture of Paris Alender brought to the story. I like that the author took the time to depict some of the historical places the character visited. I just believe Alender wrote this after a personal trip to Paris and needed an outlet to talk about it without sounding obnoxious to her friends and family. Kind of like that episode of The Big Bang Theory when Howard got back from space and wouldn't shut up about it. Suppose this was a method to relive vacation time, then well-played ma'am.
One of my biggest gripes about the book was the lack of translations. There weren't paragraphs of them, but it would have been nice to see the meanings behind some of the sentences and phrases spoken in French. Or at least provide a quick dictionary in the back of the book so readers can refer to it. I used context clues to figure out what some phrases meant, but it took too much time having to flip through my phone to translate sentences.
I'm kind of mad I had to once again wait until the end of the book to experience all the action. I think the story took too long to get to the point. The plot was easy to guess, and there was no real horror story that satisfied my appetite.
Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer is available for purchase now.