Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781496715920
Kensington Publishing
368 Pages
$5.29; $5.03 Amazon
March 28, 2018
⭐⭐
Leaving behind a failed career as a magazine editor and an embarrassing stint on a reality baking show, newly divorced lifestyle entrepreneur Hope Early thought things were finally on the upswing -- until she comes face-to-face with a murderer...
Hope's schedule is already jam packed with recipe testing and shameless plugs for her food blog as she rushes off to attend a spring garden tour in the charming town of Jefferson, Connecticut. Unfortunately, it isn't the perfectly arranged potted plants that grab her attention -- it's the bloody body of reviled real estate agent Peaches McCoy...
One of the tour guests committed murder, and all eyes are on Hope's older sister, Claire Dixon -- who, at best, saw Peaches as a professional rival. And suspicions really heat up when another murder occurs the following night. Now, with two messy murders shaking Jefferson and all evidence pointing to Claire, Hope must set aside her burgeoning brand to prove her sister's innocence. But the closer she gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer intent on making sure her life goes permanently out of style...
✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽
Hope Early moved back to her hometown after losing her husband and her job, and losing on a television reality show. Now she's moved into a farmhouse, raises chickens, and makes her living with her home and cooking blog. Things seem to be going well, at least until she goes to a friend's book signing party...
While there, she finds that her sister Claire's nemesis, real estate agent Peaches McCoy, has arrived uninvited and is rude to everyone. When Hope finds Peaches murdered in the study of her friend Audrey's home, that's bad enough. But when Claire is the prime suspect for the murder, that's worse. And when Hope decides to investigate trying to find out who the killer is, things go completely downhill. Now she's in the sights of a killer, and Claire's next home might be a prison cell. If Hope doesn't figure this out soon, both Early girls are going to be losing their lives in one way or another...
This is the first in a new series, and I really would have liked to enjoy it. But there were things unexplained (which I will explain later) and my thoughts on the plot, which I will explain first:
First off, Hope is a horrible investigator. She goes to peoples' homes and just starts looking around, without trying to be subtle, but subtlety isn't her strong point, since she just goes around asking everyone if they killed Peaches - which, of course, makes them dislike her, and honestly I don't blame them. Who would like someone who walks up to them and accuses them of murder? Of course they're going to think she's trying to find someone else to take the rap for her sister, who's the suspect.
Then, she's a blogger who never blogs. As in never. She states as how she's making her money from it, but she never goes on her computer to do so. She spends her time making food for people to get information or ask forgiveness or going to snoop.
Her sister Claire is completely dense. She lives and breathes real estate, ignores the fact she's a murder suspect, and rarely mentions that she's married with two kids, one of whom we meet in one sentence only - her husband is out of town on business (we learn he has his own business but don't know what he does) and Claire has dinner at Hope's a couple of nights while her husband's gone, then tells us how much she loves her kids. Loves them so much she eats at Hope's without them? Never spends time with them? Never talks about them? Sure, sure...
Things I would have liked explained were how did Hope lose the top prize? How did she lose her job? We get that her husband cheated, but somehow she lost her job as a magazine editor? How did her husband get everything she owned if she were the one cheated on? Why would a woman hold a grudge since grade school over something so ridiculous? If there's more to it, shouldn't we have been told what that is? None of this is explained, and should have been.
But the kicker - and the thing that may keep me from reading any more in this series which will depend upon the second book - is the ubiquitous 'love triangle'. Never interesting, always frustrating, and as I've said many, many times before, if it were a man stringing along two women, you'd think he was a dog, so why is it okay when a woman does it? It isn't. The way it happens isn't even believable. So if it develops in the next book I can tell you that I won't finish the book and will not read any more in the series. For that alone, this book was a disappointment. I do hope that this isn't going to become one. I also hope that Meg doesn't become the 'evil nemesis'. I really loathe that in books.
When the murderer was discovered, it might have been a surprise, but by the end of the book I really didn't care since there were so many slow parts with things that just weren't relevant to the murder, and the subject kept coming up about her failed career and reality show with no details about how they ended and why. Details count.
https://www.amazon.com/Uninvited-Corpse-Food-Blogger-Mystery/dp/1496715926?SubscriptionId
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3381696168
More on Debra Sennefelder's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/debra-sennefelder/
No comments:
Post a Comment