Genre: Mystery
Hardcover; [Audio CD]; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780451491435; [9781662002755]
Berkley Publishing; [Dreamscape Audio]
336 Pages
$26.00; [$22.99]; $13.99 Amazon
June 2, 2020
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Brooklyn and her new hunky husband, Derek, are excited to be guests at Dharma's first annual Book Festival. The entire town is involved and Brooklyn's mom Rebecca is taking charge. In addition to all of her other event related duties, she's got Brooklyn doing book appraisals and is also staging Little Women, the musical to delight the festival goers. If that wasn't enough, she and Meg -- Derek's mom -- will have a booth where they read palms and tarot cards.
Brooklyn couldn't be prouder of her mom's do-it-all attitude so when a greedy local businessman who seems intent on destroying Dharma starts harassing Rebecca, Brooklyn is ready to take him down. Rebecca is able to hold her own with the nasty jerk until one of her fellow festival committee members is brutally murdered and the money for the festival seems to have vanished into thin air.
Things get even more personal when one of Brooklyn's nearest and dearest is nearly run down in cold blood. Brooklyn and Derek go into attack mode and the pressure is on to catch a spineless killer before they find themselves skipping the festival for a funeral.
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Brooklyn Wainwright and her husband Derek Stone are going back to visit the small community of Dharma, California, where Brooklyn grew up. Dharma is having their first annual Book Festival, and Brooklyn will be one of the vendors, teaching children how to make accordion books and appraising books for people. She's excited once again to see her family, and Derek's mom and dad have recently purchased a summer home there, since one of their sons is living with Brooklyn's sister, and Derek's mom Meg has become best friends with Brooklyn's mom Becky.
After they arrive they decide to surprise Becky at the festival meeting that she's chairing are are surprised themselves when a big man is standing in front of the group and starts arguing with Becky. Brooklyn and Derek are stunned, but watch the action, happy that Becky can hold her own. The man storms out, and they learn he's Jacob Banyan, and he's been buying up wineries in the county only to turn the wine into boxed wine instead of the fine wine like that produced by Brooklyn's family. He's angry because he's not being allowed into the festival to hawk his boxed wine, and is determined to take it out on the committee members, including Lawson Schmidt, whom he says something cryptic to before leaving.
But Becky is excited that for this first festival they are putting on a musical version of Little Women, and they've managed to snag an ex-Hollywood movie star for the role of Marmee. Everyone's excited about the festival, and Brooklyn is also, though she's happier just to have family and friends around her.
Unfortunately, things aren't going the way they're planned. There's more confrontations with Banyan, her mother has become a target of someone, and then there's a murder...one where Becky and Meg have found the body. Now everyone is on edge, and Brooklyn is trying to protect her mother with people watching her round-the-clock. But when a second murder occurs, the ante is upped and she knows that not only is there a killer out there, but her beloved mom is in danger, and Brooklyn will do whatever it takes to protect her...
This is the fourteenth book in the series, and I do believe that it's just getting better every time. I discovered this series mid-way, and I'm enjoying going back to the beginning 'where it all started.' Saying that, you can see how much I love it. In this book, we get to know more about Becky, which is nice. She has both an inner and outer strength, which she passed on to Brooklyn, but Becky, for her part, isn't bothered by anything little like blood which still makes Brooklyn queasy. (Blood doesn't bother me, either, but my husband isn't real fond of it, ha!)
We learn a little more about about the place Brooklyn grew up, which everyone thinks was a commune but really wasn't, and of course, the author reiterates how Brooklyn and her siblings got their names, which is always nice. I also like how the relationship between Meg and Becky has gotten stronger; and I've always found it funny that Becky is proud of Brooklyn not only for who she is, but the fact that she manages to find dead bodies. It's rather macabre, but still done in a humorous way, so when Becky and Meg find the body, they're almost excited to have done so.
When the police start investigating, they want to know who wanted this person dead and why. But it leads to other things that are discovered and not in a good way - putting more than Becky in harm's way, and now Brooklyn and Derek are trying to find out what's going on while Brooklyn is still preparing for the festival.
The plot is done beautifully, the dialogue is witty and fun, and the characters are given depth and are believable and animated. The area around Dharma is described so lovely that I'd like to visit it someday. Ms. Carlisle has a way with words and a talent for bringing you into the story from the first page and taking you on the journey with her to the end. It all comes to a head eventually, which we know it will; and when the killer is discovered and the motive for the murders, it's as old as time itself, but never dull in the telling. Highly recommended.
https://www.amazon.com/Grim-Reader-Bibliophile-Mystery/dp/0451491432/ref
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3350462564
More on Kate Carlisle's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/c/kate-carlisle/
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