The Secret of Chestnut Hill by Olivia Swift was a cute short story filled with bits of romance, suspense, scandal, and mystery. Overall, I enjoyed reading Ms. Swift’s story. Near the end of the story, there were some minor typos or grammatical errors that momentarily stopped the flow of the story. The only other thing that took me off guard was how quickly Jazz and Evan’s relationship turned from professional to romantic. It is not to say that people can’t fall in love right away, but I felt as if this was forced. I didn’t feel any emotion from Ms. Swift’s writing. There are bits here and there where the dialogue and or interaction between characters just seemed too unrealistic. Again overall, I did enjoy the story as I enjoy a good mystery with a little romance and scandal mixed in, but I wished that I could’ve felt more passion and emotion from the author and seen more relatability from the characters.
The character of Jazz shows the readers that women can be soft and gentle while be a strong and dedicated hard worker. Ms. Swift did skillfully lead me to think one way about who the possible suspects were. Like in any good mystery or suspense leaving the readers guessing and implementing little subtle hints or implementing clues that might lead one off of the “woodland path” makes for a really good story.
This is the opinion of a writing student and one received an advanced copy of this story for an honest review.
jennessjordan 
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