Book of the Month is a monthly subscription service that lets you choose a book each month. BOTM gives you five books to choose from and they’ll send whichever one you choose. I’m always excited to see which books are up for selection. They try to diversify their selections. So, when April arrived, I chose Like a Sister by Kellye Garrett.

Garrett’s newest novel is a mystery around the death of Black reality TV star Desiree Pierce. On the outside, it looks like an unfortunate drug overdose. However, Lena Scott, Desiree’s estranged older sister, doesn’t believe that her sister would overdose on heroin.  Following her gut, Lena decides to investigate her sister’s death even when the police and everyone else rule it an accidental overdose. Lena will uncover more than just the truth behind her sister’s death, she’ll uncover many secrets surrounding her rich family.

Let’s get this out there first. This wasn’t a bad book. It was an average mystery novel. It follows the stereotypical main character that isn’t normally a super sleuth, but when it’s important to her she dons the Deerstalker and picks up her trusty magnifying glass and outsmarts the police to get to the truth. Throughout the entire novel, main character Lena Scott runs circles around the police. To be fair, the police aren’t investigating her sister’s death as a homicide.

Lena Scott, the protagonist, is a compelling character. I enjoyed reading the story through her eyes. There is one exception though. Lena uses an expletive that I’ve never heard before and she uses it all the time. I consider myself a connoisseur of curse words. A purveyor of profanity. A searcher of swear words. Well, I found another one to add to my collection. Obviously, I’m not going to tell you what that word is, but let’s just say it’s not a traditional one. It was humorous when Lena said it the first couple of times, but by the 300^th page, I was just over hearing it.

Garrett does a decent job with throwing clues and red herrings out for the readers to try and figure out the mystery before the main character does. Right up until the last couple of pages it’ll have you guessing and then second guessing yourself.

The best part of this novel is Garrett’s ability to involve Scott’s estranged family into the mystery. Her father is a wealthy hip-hop mogul that has a hard time showing his feelings toward his two daughters. Lena’s mother is dead, but Desiree’s isn’t. There’s an interesting relationship that the female characters of the book share. I almost would like to see a book where Desiree wasn’t dead, and it was just the family trying to piece itself together.

Overall, Like a Sister was a decent, if not average entry into the mystery genre. If nothing else, I would recommend reading it just to experience the family dynamics rather than the actual mystery surrounding Desiree’s death.