THE TWISTED THREAD by Charlotte Bacon

Armitage Academy is the most exclusive school in Massachusetts. But when the popular and beautiful Claire Harkness is found dead, everything changes, especially when it is discovered that she had recently given birth to a baby boy, who is nowhere to be found. Some of Claire's close friends knew she was pregnant but not who the father is or why Claire was insistent upon giving birth at the school. But none of the teachers or staff knew anything. Madeline Christopher is an intern teacher in the English department and resided in the same dorm as Claire. Madeline starts getting information from the other girls and tries to discover who killed Claire. She discovers many secrets and traditions of this school and how things work for the wealthy and privileged.

This story is told alternately by three narrators; Madeline, Matt, a former Armitage alum now working as a local cop, and Jim, one of the maintenance men.

This had a lot of potential but did not live up to it. I don't mind different narrators but Jim and his story was fairly irrelevant and took up too much of the story. Though this was a mystery, Claire's murder seemed to be secondary all of the different characters that overcrowded this novel. There was another small mystery added that was used to develop one of the characters but was again not relevant to the plot. The author seemed to want to focus on those that run and work at the Academy and only sporadically giving clues to the murder.

It was an easy and quick read though it could have been edited better. The lack of focus really affected my enjoyment of the book. There were good parts and I liked Madeline and Matt but I just could not engage with the story as I would have liked. Some editing could have helped but still would not have saved this book.
Some reviews have compared this novel to Donna Tartt's The Secret History but I saw almost no resemblance except the setting.

my rating 2/5