Two-and-a-half stars: two seems unjust, but three too generous.

It was a nice read and the book certainly didn't irk me in the way cozies so often do, but I was disappointed by the mystery content, or rather, the lack there of. There was no speculation about an array of possible suspects, rather, there was only one suspect. Where at the very least there should have been two suspects: both boat owners. Although the husband struck me as someone who would call his vessel a yaght rather than a boat.

I liked the motive for murder, that was unusual. And I liked Charlotte.

I was annoyed though, the author decided to hide clues from readers. Charlotte got to see what was on the photo and that helped her solve the mystery, but we were not told. That's a cheap trick that could have been avoided by having more suspects from the beginning. Hence, not three stars.

I read this book as part of a collection of series debuts.

The plot was interesting enough, although I kept wondering why the police would need to know the nitty-gritty of a scientific research for a murder investigation. I also kept wondering why anyone would ever have any room for dinner if they all were snacking on canolli so much.

Gloria pours over the print-out of a scientific research in the hope to find some clues. At the bottom of the print-out are three symbols she can't explain.

Spoiler

These are the last letters the victim typed and turn out the be the murder's initials. Why the murder typed initials rather than the name of the murderer (or the first three letters if he was stopped in the process of typing) makes little sense to me. I doubt he would call the murderer by their initials.

There were too many little annoyances in this book for me to consider reading another one in the series, but I am curious what the covers for the Tungsten (W) and the Potassium (K) murders will look like.

This book annoyed me at times. I've put it down several times to go and do something else, but I kept coming back to it, and not just because I had nothing to do over the weekend.

Samantha Kidd is attacked in a parking lot. The next day a fire starts at a fashion show in the same building. Kidd gets blamed for ruining the show. What? Rational people don't think this way. They don't blame the victim of one event of being the reason the other event happened.

Why would the hot photographer need to use Kidd's darkroom if he insists on using film to make pictures? You'd think he has his own darkroom.
Why would you even for a moment think the sister of the model started the fire? The first thing to catch fire was the kimono of the model. If the sister started the fire to protect the model, would she really start by setting fire to her sister?

Why didn't the arson inspector find the evidence of how the fire was started? He inspected the crime scene long before Kidd did.

Car antennas break when you hang onto them with your full-body weight.

Very much feelgood. Lacked dramatic tension. As a result: it was more boring than actual lockdown.

Some simple things bothered me, like, why Sophia and Jack never stuck their heads outside the perimeter of their own balconies to have a look. Sophie tried if she could see Charlie.

And why did Rick's one-night-stand have to become a live-in-girl-friend because of lockdown? I don't know about British lockdown, but was it announced effective immediately? Supermarkets appear to be still open (and I doubt just for people who can prove they are somehow a key worker). So getting out of someone's house to go to your own seems very much possible.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Bit dull.

I was in need of a book that would feel like a warm hug. This was not it for me.

It needed more conflict between the two main characters.

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

I’ve tried, but this book is just not for me.

I don’t like the main character; I don’t like the narration; I don’t like the dialogue. I’m sure the dialogue works better in audio or movie form, where you can just tune out of half of it.

I don’t like how Michael is constantly telling everyone who great Corrie is; I don’t like how Corrie has to check herself every time James looks her way.

I do like Abby. But this book is not about her.

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

Meh. I missed the light-heartedness that other books in this genre have.

Couldn’t really get into it. Story is largely about a bunch of meetings Page has at the dog park, where everyone - invariably - asks her: “Where’s your dog?” Seriously? People without dogs can go to parks too. Unless there is a sign at the gate that says ‘no admittance without a dog’, it’s still a public park. Admittance to all that are not put off by the smell of dog poo.

Apparently it’s a romantic comedy, but for me it lacked both romance and comedy. Page did some lusting after a fellow park visitor, but that’s hardly romance. And Page made regular coarse remarks, which - I guess - must be the humor element, but I rarely found the remarks funny.

I received an ARC through NetGalley.