She Didn’t Stand a Chance by Stacie Grey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When Gertie gets notification that she’s being summoned to her recently-deceased, estranged father’s luxurious desert property for the reading of his Will, she’s not exactly elated.
She hasn’t seen her four half-siblings since she was just a toddler, and has absolutely nothing in common with them. Nevertheless, she’s curious and decides to go, in spite of how awkward it’s bound to get.
Once at the property, her assumptions are confirmed. Her half-siblings treat her like gutter trash blown in off the streets. They stick her in the cluttered and neglected pool house, with no air con, or any other conveniences.
Gertie receives more warmth from the property’s staff than her own family, made worse when it’s revealed she’s set to inherit a large portion of the estate. A larger portion than anyone would have expected; especially Gertie.
Gertie has so many questions, including how did their father die? The more she asks about that, the clearer it becomes that he might not have died of natural causes.
When a member of the household staff is killed a few days later, Gertie’s confident that something nefarious is going on inside this house of glass. Will she be able to get to the bottom of it, or will she fall prey to the killer in their midst?
She Didn’t Stand a Chance pulled me in very quickly. I love an inheritance story, and this one gets to the nitty-gritty of the inheritance pretty early on.
I also really enjoyed Gertie as a main character. She’s plucky, resourceful and was very active in digging into the events surrounding her father’s death. It would have been very easy for her to just go there, sit quietly, take what was hers and move on, but she didn’t.
Though Gertie’s perspective is the only one we get in the present timeline, Grey did include some very fun mixed media aspects that helped to move the plot along. Additionally, we get little snippets of what was going on within the family just prior to their Dad’s death.
The siblings, Maryann, Brian, Liam and Jennifer, were all absolutely terrible. It was fun watching their ridiculously-petty antics. They were working hard to intimidate Gertie, but she’s made of stronger stuff than that.
There were some interesting side characters as well. My favorites being Mrs. Phan, the long-time property manager, and Eddie, the chef. The staff def had strong feelings about the family and I enjoyed getting their thoughts.
I did feel this dragged out a little towards the end, but overall, I found it to be an intriguing mystery. I had a lot of fun trying to figure out what had happened to the Dad and I definitely had moments where I was scared for our MC.
I would recommend this for anyone who enjoys a tense and dramatic inheritance story. The mystery was engaging and many of the characters were a lot of fun to hate.
I also truly enjoyed the desert setting, which added so much to the general feel of the story.
Thank you to the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I’m looking forward to more from Stacie Grey!