REVIEW: Be Careful What You Wish For

Title: Be Careful What You Wish For

Author: R. K. Avery

Genre: thriller

Price: $5.99 (ebook) / $12.95 (paperback)

Publisher: Brighton Publishing LLC

ISBN: 978-1-936587-41-4

Point of Sale: Amazon Barnes & Noble

Reviewed by: Chris Gerrib

We get a lot of requests for book reviews at POD People – probably 20 in a slow week.  Considering we’re also volunteers and writers as well, we end up turning down many requests, simply as a matter of time.  But occasionally we can accept requests “over the transom” and that’s how Be Careful What You Wish For arrived at my doorstep. 

The book is the story of Bea Miller.  At the start of the story, she decides to add to her family of four boys by kidnapping a three-year-old girl, Maggie Taylor, off of the beach at a private lake in fictional Bunting Valley, North Dakota.  The first part of the book details the kidnapping, and about half-way through we transition into the mindset of Bea after she’s caught.

I have to start by saying that I found Avery’s small-town police force exceptionally unbelievable.  A six-person department with one detective is not going to handle a kidnapping all on their own, and a small-town department in North Dakota will be much more aware of related nearby crimes.  Ms. Avery, the author, punts a bit on this by having her lead police officer, Rich Butler, be a transfer in from Detroit, but still, small towns and small departments have long memories.  There were other questionable decisions as well.

I also found Ms. Avery’s command of point-of-view somewhat weak.  I couldn’t tell if the POV was supposed to be omniscient or just occasionally lapsed into it.  Her dialog was also rather tinny at times.  These are probably a lot of complaints for a 230 page book.

Yet despite all these complaints, I found Be Careful What You Wish For to be an interesting book.  Somehow, Ms. Avery managed to get very deeply into the mind of Bea Miller, an exceptionally twisted character, and portray that character in an interesting an occasionally sympathetic manner.  Yet, while doing so, the other characters were treated appropriately and in a multi-dimensional fashion.  In short, I found the book intriguing and interesting, if flawed in execution.

6/10