Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett New Release and Book Review

 

Help me congratulate Kellye on her new book! Here’s the blurb:

The truth is never skin deep.
 
It was supposed to be a romantic getaway weekend in New York City. Breanna’s new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything—the train tickets, the dinner reservations, the rented four-story luxury rowhouse in Jersey City with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline. But when Bree comes downstairs their final morning, she’s shocked. There’s a stranger laying dead in the foyer, and Ty is nowhere to be found.
 
A Black woman alone in a new city, Bree is stranded and out of her depth—especially when it becomes clear the dead woman is none other than Janelle Beckett, the missing woman the entire Internet has become obsessed with. There’s only one person Bree can turn to: her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past. As the police and a social media mob close in, all looking for #JusticeForJanelle, Bree realizes that the only way she can help Ty—or herself—is to figure out what really happened that last night.
 
But when people only see what they want to see, can she uncover the truth hiding in plain sight?

 

MY REVIEW:

I don’t know how to ‘talk’ about this book without including some spoilers. There is a message behind this story.

The premise of this twisted tale is Bree and Ty going on a vacation together, with their newly minted 3-month-old relationship. Come to find out it was more than a vacation …

As the title would suggest, this story revolves around a missing white woman, Janelle Beckett. This was a big trip for Bree as she had never been outside of her hometown, let alone with a good-looking fellow like Ty. Enter Billie a TikToker who brings to light Janelle’s story and seemingly is doing more work than the police in trying to figure out what happened to her. Billie is an essential character to this story. There is also Ms. Morgane from the neighborhood where Bree and Ty were staying. Ms. Morgane is the calmness to Bree’s brewing storm; she has a quiet intelligence about her that Bree was drawn to.

The dynamics between Bree and her long-time friend, Adore, is an example of what true friendship looks like, no matter what happened in the past to tear them apart. And, who doesn’t need a friend named Adore?

This is definitely a tale that exudes the ‘show, don’t tell’ way of relaying a story. I could literally see in my mind’s eye the inattention Bree was given from the bored clerks, or the attention she was given from clerks who ‘looked like her.’ And, through all the rudeness that was bestowed upon Bree, she was able to bring back her ‘home training,’ as she called it, and exercise her manners, never abandoning her sense of humor, never treating others as she herself was treated. And that ending? Yeah … that ending.