Despite my opinions on the last book, I decided to read Making It Write. At first I was pleasantly surprised. I liked this book a lot better than the previous one. It had better pacing and the mystery was interesting.

Veronica is hired to help write the memoirs of Maeve Winslow, an art teacher married to a famous painter. Maeve promises there will be a surprise at the end. Before that, she gives Veronica all the bits and pieces she has written herself up to that point. Veronica takes home the notes and a big check and gets to work.

When she returns to Maeve’s home for their next meeting, she finds the front door open. She goes up the the attic room, Maeve’s room for her artwork and meeting people. Maeve’s not there, but when Veronica turns around she knocks over a teacup and breaks its ear. Veronica decides to hide her crime. She wraps the broken cup in some paper stuffs that in a cupboard and puts another cup from the set on the table. Veronica owns the same teacups and decides to bring one of her own in to replace the broken one the next time she’s at Maeve’s.

Why Veronica thinks Maeve is not going to notice one of her teacups is missing or that someone has stuffed something in one of her cupboards, I don’t know. We’ll never know if Maeve would have noticed, because when Veronica goes down the back stairs in further search of Maeve, she finds her body at the bottom step.

Maeve’s publisher wants Veronica to continue with the memoir; she has all Maeve’s notes except for the surprise at the end. Maeve’s husband wants her to stop with the memoir and even suggests to the police Veronica killed Maeve because Maeve asked for the check back.

Veronica continues with the memoir and with the help of her friend Tizzy, one of the aspiring writers in her writers’ group, she tries to interview other persons of interest.

I’m happily reading along until two things happen. Among the notes Veronica finds a postcard and on the back of it she reads something that makes everything fall into place for her. What’s on the postcard is not yet shared with readers. I hate it when authors hide information like that.

The other is that the next day, Veronica passes Maeve’s house and sees an opportunity to fix the thing with the broken teacup. She had not told the police about the teacup, because she thought Detective Janowski would consider it tampering with evidence. Why she thinks a broken teacup suddenly appearing will not be considered tampering with evidence, is unclear. Besides, she hid it in Maeve’s attic room. The teacup may have already been found.

I had to put the book down for a few days to work up the courage to continue.

Three stars, because for the most part I did like this story.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.