Tag: Cozy-mystery

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My favorite current series and this one did not disappoint. I’m so attached to these characters and Dharma.

 

The best bits of this book: meeting Derek’s brother and NO MINKA!!

 

I loved the whole sub-plot about Obedience Green and the Civil War. And of course, I can’t get enough of the bookbinding/restoration details. I find them fascinating, although I realise this might not be the case for everyone. Still, I don’t think they are overdone in any way.

 

The plot line revolves around Brooklyn’s sister Savannah and a reunion of sorts of Savannah’s classmates from Le Cordon Bleu. The villain was a bit unexpected, although I wasn’t totally stunned. The whole ‘person-you’d-least-suspect’ route, while effective, isn’t always surprising.

 

Overall, I found nothing to nitpick about this book and plenty to love. My only complaint is that I read it too fast and now I have to wait until next year for another fix. Boo, hiss and boo.

I put off reading this book for a long time because it just had way too redneck-y a vibe for me to think I’d find it enjoyable. But then I read about the author being a native Floridian (as I am) and I thought, well, I should give this a go, she should be able to do ‘old Florida’ justice with out turning everyone into caricatures.

 

So I was pleased to find myself thoroughly involved in this book by about 1/3 of the way in. I had to struggle a bit to keep Marty and Maddie straight, but each character very much has their own personality and for the most part, they’re colourful and likeable. Of course I love the Old Florida setting. The plot was well done; a lot of red herrings and suspects, a lot of clues. Very strong ending.

 

I’ll be ordering the next books in the series, and I’m hoping for some more scenes of the chemistry sort between Carlos and Mace. 

This first in a new series started off really strong, and I thought ‘yay!’ a new series to get excited about. But from there – well, it sort of fell apart. Not completely – it was still a good enough read, but not nearly as good as it’s potential.

 

First, the setting is excellent; small town, at the base of the blue ridge mountains. Most of the action takes place in only two places, so there’s not much of a mind map setup, but it wasn’t really missed and didn’t detract from the story.

 

Next, the characters. We start with a charity weaving night that introduces us to the main characters and coincidentally, the suspects. I really liked the female dynamic and was all set for a good ‘friendship’ setup for the series. But the protagonist, Della, spends most of the book talking down to her ‘closest’ new friend, Jenny, someone who believes she can read aura’s and tarot. Della treats her as a bit of a silly child because of this, and it hurts the book.

 

Della was supposed to have been a Financial Analyst in her previous life, but seems to have no money of her own and needs to take advice from the men in her life about her own financial decisions. ?!?!  Plus, I was over hearing about the damn high heels.

 

Marnie is introduced as a bit of a shrew, but then becomes likeable as the book progresses. The final female character, Dolores, is portrayed as a nasty, scheming piece of work until the last third of the book where she becomes a bit of a hero in the piece. ?!?!

 

And finally, Michael – the childhood friend/love interest: He is an Ass!!!! One minute he’s talking to Della like she’s a child and constantly nagging at her and the next, he’s blushing and running away from her at the slightest provocation. WTF??? Total turn-off.

 

All-in-all, the characters felt all over the place, I never knew how I was meant to feel about any of them (except Michael, whom I’m sure I am meant to like but really, I’d just like to kick him in the jewels…)

 

Finally, the plot. Very well done and wow, way to keep me completely distracted with lots of suspects and red herrings and then shock me at the end. Totally didn’t have a clue until Della did. Excellent!

 

Not sure I’ll read the next one or not – though I’ll admit to finding the weaving bits very interesting. I’ll have to see how I feel once the next book comes out.