Wordhunter

Readers love words – but I’d be willing to bet none of us could get close to Maggie Moore. She doesn’t just live and breathe them; she tattoos her favorite sentences onto her skin or pulls them into complex diagrams that sprawl across an endless series of notebooks. And she just so happens to be the protagonist of Stella Sands’ first foray into adult fiction, Wordhunter.

Maggie may be the top student in her forensic linguistics class, but in all other areas, her life is objectively a mess. She’s got a good heart, though, and when her school refers the local police department her way, she finds even a mess can be key to bringing the guilty to justice.

I didn’t know at the time of reading that the author had a true crime background, but given the authenticity of the procedural elements, I should have. Stella Sands writes great characters into a truly intriguing mystery, brings Florida to life around them, and combines it all with the fascinating discipline of forensic linguistics. The diagrams Maggie creates frequently break up the manuscript, and in learning to read them, I think her readers actually get to pick up a pretty cool new skill.

This was just a great, suspenseful thriller that drew me in and kept me truly guessing as to what would happen next. There’s definitely room left for sequels (though we do get a satisfying ending!), and I think this could prove to be a series with real legs. Move over, Lisbeth Salander; Maggie Moore and Florida’s muggy heat have an all-new story to tell.