Story score: 4.5/5. This is one novel I grudged putting down, even to sleep or get on with household chores. The characters are believable, especially the protagonist, Jacinta Deller. She’s a woman whose drive to succeed in the workplace sometimes overshadows her personal relationships, but through her struggles she’s never trite or helpless. It would be fabulous if this were a series, so we could find out more about how things turn out with Jacinta and her stepbrother.

Editing score: 5/5. Thin Blood looks great and reads great. Word choice is varied and sentence and paragraph structures are interesting. Nothing to complain about!

Style score: 5/5. It’s written in a style that makes you forget you’re reading at all. The story flows so easily that before you know what’s happened, fifty pages are gone. It practically reads itself.

The author is brilliant at giving exactly enough detail, for example: time drags when Jacinta is home alone at night and hearing noises outside (as it should), but the details of Jacinta’s work day that don’t have much of a bearing on the story are finished in one paragraph. Overall Thin Blood moves at a nice canter from person to person and incident to incident.

The Big Picture: This comes highly recommended from me. If you like murder mysteries, female sleuths, or both, this is a must-read. I thought I had the mystery solved until the very end, but I was wrong.

I will definitely be telling my friends about this book.

Every once in awhile a reader comes across a book that takes over their life, captures their thoughts and forces them to contemplate nothing else but the characters and actions occurring upon a page. “Thin Blood”, the debut novel by Vicki Tyley is one of those incredible,
thrilling reads. I came across this book almost by accident and I am so thankful for chance circumstance.

Discovering Ms. Tyley on www.goodreads.com, I looked at her website and took a quick glance at her book. The prologue was captivating; I couldn’t wait to read more. I turned the pages (online, because it’s an e-book) quicker than I have turned pages in quite some time.

Obsessed with an old murder case, the book’s main character Jacinta is clueless, yet incredibly smart. She is intriguing and simply put, good. She is a character I can imagine an entire series created around because she is that great. As a journalist, Jacinta finds herself jobless due to company cutbacks. Determined to do freelance work, she digs into crimes of the past and finds herself absorbed in the murder of Kirsty Edmonds. The young wife had gone missing, many years ago and her husband was the only plausible suspect. Her dead body had never been found and two juries failed to find Craig Edmonds guilty therefore leaving the case cold. Jacinta’s sudden interest however, seemed to change it all.

Page after page of twists make this novel a smashing success. The characters are multi-faceted and complex and the reader never knows whom to trust. It wasn’t until I read the very last page of “Thin Blood” that I exhaled. I was stunned and you will be too.

This book captured me from the beginning and never let go. The story is full of interesting and believable characters that were well developed. The main character, Jacinta Deller, is endearing and believable as she's drawn into the secretive life of her new friend, Narelle. I never suspected the ending and was completely surprised by it. A very good read and I
would recommend this to anyone who enjoys mysteries.

I've been meaning to read this novel by Australian author Vicki Tyley for some time now and I found it a satisfying read. The plot is well thought out, perhaps a little unlikely, and I liked the main character Jacinta Deller.

The setting is suburban Melbourne but I didn't think the novel had a particularly Australian flavour, apart occasional bits of the dialogue.

I must admit that I had the final solution worked about about two thirds of the way through, and was pleased to find that I was right.

I believe Vicki Tyley's books might only be available as self-published e-books, but perhaps someone could leave more information via a comment. If you are looking for a light but satisfying read, then this might hit the spot.

My rating: 4.3