Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780593100189
Berkley Publishing
304 Pages
$7.99; $7.99 Amazon
May 26, 2020
⭐⭐
Parker Valentine has always dreamed of opening her own winery in her hometown of Boulder, Colorado. But she gets more than she bargained for when a food and wine critic unexpectedly shows up at Vino Valentine on opening day. A negative review could be fatal for business, and not only does he seem to hate her chardonnay, he also collapses and dies shortly after drinking it.
Although Parker hoped that the attendees would put a cork in it, soon her winery is at the center of a media firestorm. With #killerchardonnay trending online, Parker's business is in danger of closing, and she has no choice but to investigate the murder herself.
To restore her reputation, catch a killer, and keep her struggling business open, Parker needs only one thing: some good proof.
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Parker Valentine has always wanted to own a winery, and finally her dream has come true. Her grand opening has come, and while it's not packed, there are, at least, several people, including her brother Liam and his friend Reid. Also present is a local restaurant blogger who showed up and Parker - snooping on his tablet - sees that he's given one of her wines a bad review. But it doesn't matter when the man almost immediately turns up dead, and now she's under investigation as a suspect, and her winery is put on the no-go list by people who liked the blogger. With her livelihood at stake, Parker knows if she's not the one to find a killer, she'll be out of business -- for good...
I really love mysteries, and I really wanted to like this book. But, unfortunately, it read like a bad Foreign movie. To wit: it's as if someone were holding a camera behind another person, watching their every move as they go about their day. She tells us everything that happens in the right-here-and-now as it occurs. For example, if she drops a pin she'll say: 'I drop a pin and pick it up,' not 'I dropped a pin and picked it up." It's disconcerting. It's as I said, like following someone around to see what they're doing, like you're watching a documentary. It makes it difficult to believe that she knows what another person is thinking at exactly that time.
This is what I personally disliked about the book. I don't mind books written in first person, many of them are of course quite good. But this is "happening right now" and I honestly don't care for this style of writing; in fact, I don't think I've ever read a book that was written like a documentary before. There were also a few other things, but they were minor, like her statement that her friend Sage was wearing "a fierce blouse that brings out the red in her hair." What, pray tell, is exactly a 'fierce blouse?' Is it angry?
I also didn't really care for the potential love triangle, but then again, I really hate them in books anyway. I'm again stating that if it were a man stringing along two women, you wouldn't think much of him, so why is it okay when a woman does it? It's not.
While this book has plenty of potential, and the author has a decent start to a series, I just didn't care for the follow-me-around-while-I-go-about-my-day-feeding-my-cat-etc.; I much prefer the past tense of "I fed my cat and drove to the store," not "I'm feeding my cat and driving to the store." Very sorry, but unless this author changes the narrator's tense, I won't be reading any more of these books.
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