Back to You

Title: Back to You
Author: Chris Scully
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Release Date: June 12, 2017
Genre(s): Contemporary Romance, Murder / Mystery
Page Count: 266
Rating: 4 stars out of 5


Read book blurb here

The setting of Back to You is as much a character as the main characters Alex and Ben. Set in a small town in British Columbia on the infamous Canadian Highway of Tears, where dozens of women and girls disappeared over a 40 year period, there's a melancholy and sense of dread around the edges. When Alex and Benji were 13, Benji's 17-yr-old sister Misty Morning disappeared without a trace and shortly thereafter Alex and his sister Janet and mother left town.

20 years later, journalist Alex returns home as his estranged father lays dying of cirrhosis, hoping at best to perhaps get a story out of the experience to pull him out of his writing slump. But when Alex hears - “Didn’t mean to . . .” Dad whispered, his stale breath blowing in my face. “Misty.” - the ground shifts under his feet. Misty's car has just been discovered in a lake outside town, the police are once again investigating the case and it appears everything is coming to a head - Misty's disappearance, Alex's hatred for his father, his unresolved feelings for Ben.


The mystery and suspense of what happened to Misty is what drives the story, with Alex and Ben coming in second. We get Alex's POV throughout the story, but what Ben actually feels is unclear. Ben's mother Angela devoted her life to finding out what happened to Misty and that didn't leave a lot of emotional real estate for Ben to claim. I so wanted to hear Ben's voice and his reactions and he remained very much a mystery.

The answer to Misty's disappearance is heart-rending and the big reveal is truly a surprise. Alex's revelation about his family is poignant as he realizes that the things we think we know as kids aren't necessarily the way things were:

The truth is a funny thing. Everyone claims to want it, but most of us spend our lives hiding from it. We see what we want to see, who we want to see, because it’s easier. We delude ourselves.

As a suspenseful mystery, Back to You succeeds beautifully, however I felt the book needed Ben's POV to fully flesh out the second chance romance. 4 stars.