L. S. Hilton Maestra

Hardly ever does it happen to me to buy a book without checking it before. This time it was different because I visited a bookstore accidently. Moreover, there was a sale so I couldn't resist extending my bookcase.

It was such a big mistake to do it.

I can say for sure that 'Maestra' has been my biggest disappointment this year so far. Polish cover says about some spectacular frauds, thefts and murders. The titular Maestra was to be a mysterious wrongdoer who would take me to a land of terror and tension. I expected a story which would be good enough to at least intrest me, not even surprise.

It was such a big mistake to think this way.

I don't know what was worse: the fact that in being a thriller 'Maestra' was quite poor or maybe that it wasn't even the thriller in the whole. When I read people's opinion about the book (after having read it, silly me), I found some mentions about sexual aspect. The truth is, 'Maestra' has horribly many sexual aspects. I'm not a kid anymore, I've read various things with different derscriptions of sex scenes. But usually there were such scenes in romance novels, rather rarely in other genres. When I see a big writing 'The most shocking thriller of the year' I expect an actual thriller, not an erotic novel. And that's what 'Maestra' in some parts is. I was forced to read about an elite sex club because calling it 'brothel' would be so rude and inelegant. I can understand that the protagonist Judith Rashleigh was a nymphomaniac and she needed a lot of... men's attention. It's fine that she wanted to use and manipulate them by having sex with them. But why on earth I had to read these detailed depictions? I suppose they were to be fancy and sophisticated but I don't necessarily agree they indeed were.

The thriller part wasn't good, too. I wanted it to keep me guessing, to mislead me. I didn't get any of it. It was maybe not predictable, but just boring and somehow unbelieveable. I dind't like the POV. Knowig that Judith is the murderer I felt deprived of guessing who the culprit is and that's the most funny and intresting thing in thrillers and detective stories. I don't quite get how it happened that Judith from a person being familiar with art became a criminal. I know it all started with James' death. But it was an accident, Judith was the one who exaggerated. She immediately assumed she and Leanne would be accussed of murdering their fundator because there were some marks of sleep pills in his bloodstream. Couldn't he take them himself? Furthermore, I don't know, maybe I'm so stupid but I can't understand how Judith decided to kill Fitzpatrick and steal his painting. She unveiled a fraud, she wanted money, she though it would be an easy work to do, fine. Though it's not so easy to make up your mind about taking somebody's life. I didn't see she had any trouble with it. I know she was probably a bit mad. But the author didn't give any reasonable explainations when, why and how. That disappointed me as well.

During reading I couldn't resist the feeling that Mrs Hilton was persistently trying to make her book better, but she didn't quite know how. She transfered her weird ideas from her mind on the paper sheet and it didn't make anything good happen. Everything was somehow over the top: the crimes and ways they were committed, erotic scenes, Judith thoughts and her relations with people. There was no balance, no naturalness.

I expected a good thriller with art as a cherry on the top, but the only thing I got is a poor story with exaggerated threads on all grounds.

I think that 2/10 I gave it on lubimyczytac (a page similiar to goodreads) explains everything.