Review: Totwasser

Totwasser by Julia Hofelich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First book started and finished in 2019. Should clean up my lists, instead I normally start another book, to let it fall by the wayside instead of deciding to mark it DNF and moving it to the "abandoned" list.
But this one was really good, after a bad 2018 regarding my choice of books, I hope to do better this year. Also, I have reduced my reading challenge this year to 78 books, after I missed that on Goodreads the second year running (being 104 books, two books per week). One of the reasons was, that I read quite a few novellas and books I could not review for one reason or the other. And I sometimes did not think about a review and instead only rated it and wrote "review follows later", but often I never wrote one even later.

So, this one is a single female as MC, who had a bad accident leaving her paranoid, scarred and limping with one of her legs. But how she gets through her fears, which are sometimes even justified, was very well written and integrated into the story.
The case was with quite a few twists, which kept me guessing, and different scenarios where played through, so both me as the reader and the MC (and most other persons) did not know what happened, or who died when. This changes a few time through the book, and while not all is totally page-turning suspenseful at roughly 70% or 80% I could not stop reading.
No sex, a little romance.
Suggest to look up Cornwall, UK with Google Earth, there are quite a few beautiful place pictured, took a vacation there with my parents, oh, wow, 1984/5, so long ago.
One idea mentioned is a Keltish Ritual, for fertility of a Woman (Witch), quite grissly.
Killings and other things are quite real, but not too brutal or detailed described. But Trigger Warnings, some ideas mentioned are quite perverted, I will not go into detail as not to spoil it, but again, not very detailed, imho, so even if you try to avaid certain themes, they do not go so deep.

First in a series, but just published (December 21st, 2018 is listed on Goodreads, also only Kindle and only German, so I should write a German review).
Highly recommended 5stars, no logic errors, no bad grammar or spelling, no swearing (or not much and mild). Will try to follow this author and read the next one(s) in the series if they are not too expensive. This one cost me less than 4 Eur, which is ok for me.
If this gets translated into English, I suggest trying it, although it may not hold the same interest for an English speaking person as it did to me as a German.


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