I’m pleasantly surprised. I actually kind of liked this book. The first part of it, anyway.

It’s a few months after the events of the first book and it is Christmas time. Summer is still running the bookshop her mom has left her, and avoiding opening a box her half-brother has given her. Marilyn and Glads are still helping out at the shop all the time, despite having actual day jobs and organizing a Cozy Mystery Writers Meet-up. They’ve invited three cozy mystery writers to Brigid’s Island: Peg, Lucy and Mimi.

Mimi’s written a book that’s loosely based on an unsolved murder that took place on Brigid’s Island 35 years ago. Before she’s even arrived on the island, she’s received a threat to stay away from the island. Which she doesn’t, but it’s decided - due to the threat - it’s better she’d stay at Summer’s house rather than at the B and B. Not entirely clear why.

Meanwhile, Summer receives a second box, this time from the storage room at the bookshop. This box has a scrapbook her mother kept with newspaper clippings from the old murder. Naturally, Summer is intrigued.

Then one of the boxes is stolen from Summer’s house and Mimi disappears. It seems someone wants the past to stay in the past.

Actually, it is up to this point I liked the story. Sure, the author is again mostly writing for word count: thoughts are repeated too many times and there are unnecessarily long descriptions. But not actually all that much is happening in the sense of plot developments. Until, rather suddenly, there is a full confession of the guilty and an arrest by the police.

I’m sure this could have been a tighter story. There are too many characters hanging around the bookstore that serve no real purpose, and the characters of Peg and Lucy should have been fleshed out better for them to be hanging around for a few days extra.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

I’m reading the Single Town books out of order. I don’t think it should matter as each book supposedly focusses on a different couple. That said, I think book three worked better as a standalone than this second in series. I had the nagging feeling there was something missing, something the author wasn’t telling me. A feeling I did not have when I read the third book.

Or it could simply be that I did not care as much about Eloise and Jeff as I did about Polly and Devlon.

I think that’s it. Eloise was OK, though her blurts weren’t very spectacular. Not enough to win my further empathy. Jeff was an ass. “My first responsibility is with the Thinkers.” It’s good that his employees are a priority, and that he is skeptic of someone that might be a con-artist, but his employees are supposed to be among the smartest of the smart. I should hope that gives them natural protection against being gullible. Don’t need protection from the COO as well.

Eloise is a witch whose magic’s been hacked and she’s been cursed with a blurting spell. Very inconvenient when you practice law. She decides to take a sabbatical and sets up shop as a palm reader. Not long after, her shop is closed down because of faulty wiring. Town matriarch/busybody Ruby Rea suggests she move in with Jeff, aforementioned skeptic and owner of a large house.

How the story continues is hardly a surprise.

I read an ARC through Booksirens.

Hilarisch.

Kamagurka kende ik al van zijn cartoons in de krant. Marc Van Ranst kende ik nog niet (ik kijk geen Vlaamse TV, lees geen Vlaamse krant). Geweldige combinatie: de soms absurdistische cartoons van Kamagurka, de scherpe tweets van Marc Van Ranst en de korte informatieve stukjes.

Je zou bijna wensen dat de pandemie nog wat langer duurt voor een deel twee. (bijna he, bijna.)

One of Veronica’s - writer for hire - clients is killed. When a detective visits to interview her, she learns the man used an assumed name. Curious to know why he had her write love letters, and to whom, why he didn’t pay his bills and why he was killed, Veronica investigates.

In the mean time, Veronica has asked Ben, brother of her downstairs neighbour and a member of her writing group, to be her plus one to a party. They go out a few times to watch how couples behave, as input for figuring out how to behave as each other’s plus one. Apparently, while both of them have been married, they haven’t got a clue. o^O.

As a narrator Veronica is a bore. She wants to avoid clichés, but perhaps she should also consider not repeating the same information every time an opportunity to share comes up. Fair enough, I had at one point sort of forgotten what kind of deals she had set up with her various clients, but then, the dullness of the narrative had made me set aside the book for five days. I’m sure there is an optimum somewhere.

Also annoying: repeatedly it is mentioned the girlfriend found the body of the client and that this is thought of as suspicious. It isn’t. He was killed in her apartment. It would have been suspicious if she had not been to one to find him. “She was out of town for a week when her place was burgled and her boyfriend was killed? How convenient.” (Besides, it’s never the girlfriend - in cozies because it would be too obvious, in reality because women rarely kill their boyfriends.)

Anyway, I struggled through the story. Veronica’s snooping is mild. She learns most while working for her clients.

Two stars, because I don’t agree with Veronica’s assessment of how clever she was at figuring out who’d dunit.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

I wanted to read this book because in the last year and a half there seem to be more science deniers among my acquaintances. So far I've dealt with an overload of nonsense by blocking their feed from my timeline (I can deal with a little bit of nonsense - it's actually quite informative - but I don't want it to take over a substantial part of the timeline).

Lee McIntyre shows that science deniers on any topic use the same tactics:
* cherry-picking evidence
* belief in conspiracy theories
* reliance on fake experts (and the denigration of real experts)
* committing logical errors
* setting impossible expectations for what science can achieve

The way to talk to them - on their chosen topic of not following mainstream science - is pretty much the same for all: talk to them respectfully. That works in pretty much any conversation, regardless of topic.

The book starts out interesting, but I kind of lost interest around the GMO chapter. Mainly, I think, because Lee McIntryre wanted to find out if there is such a thing as liberal science denial. Does it matter?

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Inspirerend. Zou 'm graag op de leeslijst zetten van het MT. Alvast voor de volgende reorganisatie.

Action packed.

It's about a month after the events of the first book (there is a short recap in this story, in case you missed the first book) and Phoebe thought her life had turned back to normal. Well, sort of normal, living in a household with a werewolf, a vampire and two mages. But then her boss tells her he finds her repulsive. He kindly adds that he shouldn't feel this way.

It turns out, Phoebe is under a spell. And while her boss (also a mage) tries to find a counter-spell, Phoebe tries to stay out of his way and to dodge her mother. Her (second) cousin Olivia is getting married and apparently, for mother Thorpe this is reason to pester her daughter about getting married. (For reals? Is her mother from the Regency period?)

The hunt for the counter-spell leads to the discovery of a conspiracy among mages.

As I said, action packed.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Lovely, like a West Country cream tea.

At the wake of her father Imogen finds the body of her estranged husband. Together with her neighbour acress the street, retired DCI Adam she investigates the deaths of her husband, her father and a school friend who died thirty years ago. Three deaths that only seem to have Imogen in common.

The story is told alternately from Adam and Imogen and features mainly characters that behave like the grown-ups they are supposed to be. I like that.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

This was my least favourite of the three Singles town books. Although it was the only one that actually explained the series title.

The problem was that Remington seemed to lack purpose, other than to swoon over her neighbour Jason. There was something to do with a to-do list her friend Beth left her as part of a last will. But that was drowned in the swooning. And Beth’s memory was leaky as a sieve, so she was no help. I think that part was supposed to be an element of comedy. Alas, it was lost on me. There was something to do with the FBI, but that was a convoluted plot point. And left the story with some unnecessary loose ends.

Anyway, for the most part the story fizzled. Perhaps if it had been about 30% shorter, some urgency could have been introduced.

2.5 stars, rounded down.

I received an advance review copy for free from BookSirens, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.