Murder and Mischief in the Hamptons (Hamptons #2)

This is a fun, fast, entertaining SPA read. 3.5 stars, but only because the murder mystery plot wasn’t truly central to the story, with 99% of it occurring in the last half of the book.

 

Still, the characters are a lot of fun; likeable, funny, with great dialogue. The ghosts are a hoot and they often steal the scenes with the best lines. I’ll be looking for the release of a third book in this series.

Living and Dying in the Hamptons (Hamptons #1)

Well, a GR friend had only good things to say about this SPA book and recommended it to me and so I picked it up.

 

A fun fast read with a great cast of characters you wish existed in real life. The ghosts all crack me up – each very unique and very much still the person they once were. I love the snark and the humour, and the dialogue is fast and easy to follow with a minimum of editing errors.

 

The plot was well developed, a very solid effort. The villain wasn’t obvious (to me) and though the ending was a bit anti-climatic, I was ok with that as I get tired of the predictability of cozies and their endings at times.

 

This book is an absolute steal, as the author is giving it away free of charge on Smashwords. I’d have happily paid 2-3 bucks for this book and another 2-3 for the sequel. If you’re looking for an entertaining story that’s lighthearted and fun, and you like free, this might be the book for you.

Dyeing Wishes (Haunted Yarn Mystery #2)

So, I liked this book. It was a good, entertaining read. But I didn’t love it. Or really like it. I really liked the first one.

 

The characters are great – likeable, unique, sassy in some cases, sweet in others. A wide range of ages in the posse keeps things interesting – I want these people to be my friends. If the author has designs on making Cole the romantic interest in the future, I hope she soon shows another side to him, cuz he’s an ass and I was only sorry Kath didn’t punch him in the nose again in this book. Joe’s an enigma – I wanna know more about him.

 

I wish the ghost was less of a mess – she’s really unlikeable and not a sympathetic character because she’s just, well, a mess (and incredibly self-centered). She’d be a much more interesting character if the author gave her some depth; some dimensionality. Some Xanax.

 

The setting is awesome – small town set in the Tennessee hills, and I’d like to move into the Weaver’s Cat.

 

The plot was solid, well done, and not one of the clichéd cozy-mystery plots that authors can buy 5 for a dollar. I truly didn’t see the villain or have a hint of the villain until the giveaway clue.

 

I’m not really sure why this wasn’t a four star read for me except that it felt choppy; like it didn’t flow as well as it should or as well as the first one. That can be a subjective thing – maybe it would be smoother if I read it again at some point – so I’d recommend this one to anyone who has read the first one. And I’ll be eagerly awaiting the third book…

Death, Taxes, and Hot Pink Leg Warmers

Well, I’m not sure about the ending, but the rest is excellent! Great characters, snappy dialogue and excellent story lines.

 

I enjoy the way the author goes between two or more story lines in these books, each one is a nice break from the other and it keeps things interesting. The main plot line was intense, so the secondary plot offered a breather and I enjoyed reading about the individual agencies working together.

 

The sexual tension between Nick and Tara is fun and the author does an excellent job with the writing – enough to be steamy, not so much as to be veering into erotic writing.  This has been a strong series from the beginning and I’m looking forward to the next book, which luckily is only a couple of months away.

Death Rides Again (Jocelyn Shore Mysteries #3)

A series that just gets better with each book. Death Rides Again was great. I love the witty, dry, tell-it-like-it-is dialogue that doesn’t hold back. I love the sarcasm used judiciously by the main character Jocelyn. I’m loving the new love interest. The only thing I didn’t love was the overall theme of hunting – I hate hunting animals with a fervent passion. Luckily, most of it was talk and no animals were overtly harmed in the story.

 

This one takes place at the family’s ranch over the Thanksgiving holidays and while I usually don’t care for mysteries that take place ‘away from home’ none of the mysteries in this series have taken place in the same place, so no real sense of a permanent setting has ever really been established.The plot was complicated, twisted, and well done. While I suspected I knew who the villain was, I was only a tiny bit right in the end.  A fun, fast-paced, hard-to-put-down mystery and I’m really looking forward to more books.

Mama Rides Shotgun (A Mace Bauer Mystery #2)

An excellent read – but I have a beef. The last book Mama Does Time, ends with Mace saying she’d had gone on ‘a date’ with Carlos, but that he had needed to move back to Miami to sort things out. A. Date. At the beginning of this book, it’s all about how they’d had a full-on relationship and he’d broken it off to move back to Miami. I hate when author’s re-invent their character’s histories like that. Drives me nuts.

 

Now that that’s off my chest – I’m loving this series so far. As a fourth generation Floridian myself, I thoroughly enjoy this visit to the Florida I grew up in and miss fervently. I get a huge kick out of Mace and her sisters – and I appreciate the reality of family life Ms. Sharp allows when one of the sisters (usually Mace) puts their Mama in her place – and Mama often needs it! It is a refreshing change of pace from those books where the Mother can act like she ought to be riding a broomstick but no one would dare speak a disrespectful word to her.

 

As much as I like Mace, I have to admit to liking Marty just that little bit better. And I love the pacing and dialogue when the three are playing off each other.

 

The plot was excellently done – a really well crafted mystery with an ending that I didn’t see coming.

 

I’ve been suffering a string of books lately that have been flat, disappointing, and lifeless. Mama Rides Shotgun was a delightful cure and a breath of fresh, slightly horsey-scented, air.

Laced with Poison (Sweet Nothings #2)

Small southern town with small-town southern charm. A lingerie store that specialises in vintage lingerie. A world travelled aunt and a good looking love interest. A perfect setup. Sadly, the perfect setup is hopelessly marred by really bad plotting and, although to a much lesser degree, stilted writing.

 

This town the author has created (I know, Paris, TN really does exists, but this Paris is a creation of the author) is great: interesting and fun characters you find yourself liking. But the writing itself comes across stilted and un-natural, and it lacks the flow of authentic conversation a lot of the time. In a really well written book, I don’t even notice the ‘he said’ or ‘she said’, but I found them really noticeable in this story.

 

As to the plot, well, as with the first book, I knew the murderer and why from the very first moment possible.

 

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When Jessica first told her ‘story’ and the murderer denounced it as gossip. And please, Emma sees the cupcake boxes all tied up on the counter in the kitchen, sees the murderer come in as she’s leaving the kitchen, and the next thing that happens is the woman comes out of the kitchen with the cupcakes unboxed and on a platter. How Emma missed that one is a mystery for the ages. And the police – no one thinks to ask ‘who un-boxed the cupcakes and put them on the platter?’ ‘who served them?’

INSERT SPOILER TAG HERE

 

It was just so obvious that the fronting of additional suspects just wore my patience thin and I wanted the book to be over with.

 

It’s a shame, because I really want to like these books – they have all the earmarks of what would normally be fun, enjoyable reads. But unless the plotting gets much more sophisticated, this will be a series I’ll have to pass by.

Death of a Coupon Clipper (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery #3)

I have a few friends on GR who read the first book in this series and didn’t like it but I found enough to like that I bought and read the second one – which I thought was quite good. This one was NOT.

 

I really did not enjoy this book at all. It took me forever to finish this one because I just didn’t want to.

 

When I pick up a cozy, it’s for entertainment, for escape. Something nice and light, maybe a bit of humour – nothing too ‘real’. So when this book started with Hayley being beset by financial disasters, being so broke she has to beg her mom for money, her mom telling her ‘no’; well, we’re not off to a good light-hearted start are we? I realise the author is trying to set up the whole coupon-clipping-gameshow scenario, but she went about it in the most depressing, downtrodden way possible.

 

In addition to this, Lex, the love interest the author has been championing throughout the series, decides to go on a couple of benders through out the book and Hayley acts like this drunken, aggressive behaviour is a non-event. It’s never discussed or even acknowledged – not even when he beats down her brother’s door at night, falls down, and passes out on the floor. Really? I’m supposed to find this endearing????

 

I will give credit to the author for an excellently crafted plot – I did not see the villain of this story at all until the end. Also, the columns throughout the book are cute and entertaining, as well as a clever way to incorporate the recipes and cocktails into the story.

 

I’ll consider the fourth one when it comes out – because the second book was a good one, but this one is a definite black mark on the series so far.

Dead, Undead, or Somewhere in Between (Rhiannon’s Law, #1)

I liked the book quite a bit – it held my attention until I was able to finish it. I won’t claim it has any really original angle to it, but it does what it does well. I genuinely like Disco/Gabriel, and Paine. Rhiannon was ok – I rather wish the author hadn’t taken the clichéd route in terms of her past. Her past is the worst kind of horrid, but keeping her a naive virgin?? When there’s nothing else a bit naive about her? Seemed a very very forced plot device to me.  

 

I liked the plot although the motivation behind the crimes wasn’t explored at all – I felt like the villain could have been hinting at his capabilities/motivation a bit throughout the story, but instead everything was just explained at the end. Oh well. It’s absence didn’t make the story less enjoyable, but it’s presence could have made it more so.

 

I have to admit, I’ll not read the second one, as futuristic/dystopian settings are less than interesting to me. 

The Diva Frosts a Cupcake (A Domestic Diva Mystery #7)

I’m a fan of this series, but this one just didn’t do it for me and I can’t say why. Well, I can say waaayyy too much internal dialogue was going on – I was skipping all sorts of paragraphs. But even so, something was just missing from this one.

 

Plot line was decent, although a bit all over the place. Didn’t guess the murderer, but I don’t think I was trying either. I just kept thinking ‘must get through this book’.

 

Well, fingers crossed for the next one.