ppcfransen's Reviews (563)

Not a typical cozy. Oh, it has the cozy elements, such as woman in her twenties looses her high-achiever job, moves/returns to a place of her youth (in this case both) and start (to work at) a bakery. But also, it is more gritty than most cozies. “[I] placed my cleavage on the bar along with my purse.” I don’t think I have ever read a line like that in a cozy.

It took some getting into this story. Until I read a review that suggested Cherry Slice should be read as a satire. That worked.

Cherry, once an investigative reporter, but since she was exposed as a fraud on a reality TV-show, works at her parents’ cake shop. She is approached by the sister of a one-time boyfriend Kenny. The ex-boyfriend was killed when he participated in a TV-show. The sister believes the wrong man was sent to prison and asks Cherry to investigate.

Though she believes this is a though case - the man pleaded guilty and is now dead himself, plus, everyone saw him do it on the footage - Cherry takes on the case. Between selling cakes, being hassled about her current investigation and her previous public humiliation (and her mum treating her like everything is her fault), Cherry talks everyone that was involved in the TV-show with Kenny. She soon finds there is not much true in reality TV.

The grittiness worked because of the setting of the story in reality TV shows and the Y-listed celebrities that appear in them. The story was well executed and all the characters came off really well (over the top as they should be in a satire).

Perhaps this story is a better fit for someone more familiar with the reality TV show genre.

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

This is the second instalment in the Kristy Farrell Mystery series. No need to read the first book to make sense of this story; everything that is important from the first mystery is mentioned in this book.

Kristy is working on several stories that involve the sea life aquarium of Clam Cove Long Island. One is the story where the aquarium wants to buy 20 acres of adjoining land to expand. For this the aquarium needs to raise 10 million dollars before next Summer. It stands to receive 6 million from the estate of Alicia Wilcox Chandler. That is until Katie the estate's executioner is found dead in a tank with sea snakes.

There are a lot of people that have an interest in the aquarium not being able to raise the 10 million. Could any of them have killed Katie? As Kristy investigates, more bad things happen to the aquarium and Kristy finds her suspects' list getting longer not shorter.

I enjoyed this mystery. Plenty of suspects with motive, means and opportunity. There's even a mystery to the side.

What I didn't care for was that evidence was hidden from me. Kristy would find a photo that she'd find interesting, but not tell what was in the picture. A necklace was found at a crime scene and not a description was given, but Kristy knew who the owner was. I want to know too so I can draw my own conclusions.

I read an ARC through Netgalley.

I loved this book much more than I had expected. It's a spoof of time traveling stories, and at the same time an excellent time travelling story.

I read an ARC through booksirens.

I really enjoyed this cozy. One of the best series’ debuts I’ve read in a while. Nell is a wonderful lead: charming, sensible, professional and curious in all the right quantities.

The story is very detailed about the work of a fundraiser, perhaps too detailed for some, but the author showed she knew what she was talking about. Which is a nice change from so many cozy where I've got to wonder whether the author even bothered to research what they are talking about.

It isn't a typical cozy in the sense that a murder is the main mystery. Far from it, the death of a staff member is considered an accident. The main focus is on the theft of parts of the collections of the Society. The most likely suspect is quickly identified and the rest of the story is about how to gather the evidence to catch the thief.

Also nice to read a cozy where the romance contents was negligible. I kept expecting it to pop-up (other cozies have spoiled my mind), but luckily the romantic interest I had picked was too professional for that.

I rarely read urban fantasy, so I'm not familiar with the tropes of the genre. Everything that happened to Jade was as strange to me as it was to her. Like Jade I did not pick out the baddy from the begining (but if I'd had more experience in the genre, I'm pretty sure I would have).

I did find the relationship between Jade and Sienna odd. They are supposed to be best friends since forever, but Sienna behaved more like the spoiled kid sister, bullying her sister into things she didnot want to do. I didn't see the friendship.

I found this an enjoyable read, but there were somethings that annoyed me, such as

Spoiler

that the Vampire was able to tell she was half-witch, but not what the other half of her was. A magical creature he's never heard of?

and that Jade kept throwing in "Yeah, that's me" comments (particularly, the yeah bothered me).

Felt very activistic after reading this book.

I liked this story. It was well-written, though at times confusing. Such as the little comments that were made about Raina's family and about her past relationship with Matthew. In a way it felt like I was reading a second or third book in a series, rather than a first book. On the other hand, we all have pasts, and so should fictional characters have. Actually, it is more silly that in other first-in-series-books the my-life-so-far can be summarized in a few sentences. Raina has books worth of past; other characters now seem boring by comparisson.

Raina is an interesting protagonist. She has a complicated, undisclosed past and she lies rather easily (and is then bothered that her lies come out to bite her in the butt). Makes a nice changes from characters whose only flaw is that they do not live up to their mothers' expectations.