Emilie's Book World: Blog Tour - Kiss Kill Vanish by Jessica Martinez

Title: Kiss Kill Vanish

Author: Jessica Martinez

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Release Date: October 7, 2014

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

Valentina Cruz no longer exists.

One moment, she was wrapped in Emilio’s arms, melting into his kiss. The next, she was witnessing the unthinkable: a murder in cold blood, ordered by her father and carried out by her boyfriend. When Emilio pulled the trigger, Valentina disappeared. She made a split-second decision to shed her identity and flee her life of privilege, leaving the glittering parties and sultry nightlife of Miami far behind.

She doesn’t know how to explain to herself what she saw. All she knows now is that nothing she believed about her family, her heart, or Emilio’s love, was real.

She can change her name and deny her past, but Valentina can’t run from the truth. The lines between right and wrong, and trust and betrayal, will be blurred beyond recognition as she untangled the deceptions of the two men she once loved and races to find her own truth.

I love a good thriller. When I first heard about Jessica Martinez's Kiss Kill Vanish, I knew it had the potential to be just that. The more I heard about it, the more excited about it I got. Everyone seemed to be loving this book. And having now read it, I can definitely see why because I am in the same boat as everyone who's loved this book.

After what she saw from Emilio's closet that night, Valentina Cruz didn't even take the time to back her things before she fled town. She couldn't believe what she had seen, that Emilio and her father could have done what they did. But she saw it with her own eyes. Now in Montreal, with nothing to her name, Valentina is surviving, doing what she has to in order to keep a roof over her head. But when what she thought she had left behind in Miami comes back to haunt her, Valentina doesn't know what or who to believe. How can she possibly understand what she saw when she can't even explain it to herself? She thought she knew her family's story, but now she doesn't know what's real anymore. Valentina knows she can't run away from the truth anymore, but what truth was she trying to run from in the first place?

Thrillers are awesome. Whether in book form, TV show form or movie form, I love them all and can't seem to get enough of them. Whenever I hear about a new one coming out, I get excited and can't wait to read it. With Jessica Martinez's Kiss Kill Vanish, I already knew that I enjoyed this author's books so I was interested to see how I would feel about a thriller. Kiss Kill Vanish definitely had a lot of potential. When I first heard about it, I couldn't wait to read it. The closer it got to the release date, the more positive reviews I saw and the more excited to read it I got. Once I started reading, though, I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about the story. For a while, I just couldn't seem to get into it. It just felt like it was not going anywhere. But then once the story got going, I was very much into it. I saw some of the big twists coming. But here were many instances when I didn't know what to believe anymore. So often, I would feel just like Valentina did, trying to puzzle out exactly what her family is involved in and who around her she can trust. Because this was very much Valentina's story, finding out the truth about her past and her family's past.

I'm not going to lie, Valentina kind of bugged me at first. To be honest, the first part of the book kinda just felt like she was throwing this big pity party for herself. Don't get me wrong, I got that she was trying to figure stuff out and that she was dealing with the fact that she saw her boyfriend kill someone after being ordered to do so by her father. And yes, she was struggling. But still, I was very excited when she finally started doing something to help herself, even if I didn't completely agree with what she was doing. By the end of the book, though, I loved the person Valentina had become. And then there was Emilio and Marcel. I wasn't sure how to feel about Emilio. Valentina clearly loved him, but I was never sure if she loved him for the right reasons. There was just always something about him that seemed off at first. And Marcel, well I didn't think much of him at first. At all. I just thought he was going to be a background character. He didn't exactly make a great first impression, but the more I got to know him, the more I came around to Marcel. And much like with Valentina, I liked him very much by the time I finished reading Kiss Kill Vanish.

With Kiss Kill Vanish, Jessica Martinez moved away from the type of contemporary stories she had so far written and I am happy to report that it was a successful change. Once I got into it, I highly enjoyed this story, even if it wasn't always what I thought it was going to be.