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ppcfransen
This is a charming series. Even though I have issues with it.
Dahlia is finding her footing both as a guarding to her niece and as an inn-keeper. She wants to get more involved with her niece’s school and considers participating in the school’s bake sale. Someone suggests that she should organize the bake sale, and then uses mesmer or something for Dahlia to take on these duties. The woman’s tactic is to make a suggestion and then keep quiet and let the other person talk themselves into it. I don’t really believe Dahlia would be susceptible to this trick. She would say: “I didn’t think about organizing.” And then wait for the other person to speak again and wonder if she was supposed to say anything more if the other woman didn’t speak. I suppose this set-up is needed to introduce Dahlia to the future victim.
There’s more actual sleuthing than in the previous book, but some of it is kinda of convoluted. Dahlia lies to get access to Mrs Withers classroom to look for the reports of previous bake sales. She’s taken over the organization of the bake sale for this year. She probably could have just asked for those reports. Later, when doing laundry A thing like that can’t be waved away with a ‘I never liked being in this room so I never really looked’. At the very least that requires an explanation why you are looking now. Better yet, storywise, if she had made this discovery before any of the other events in the story take place. It would explain her interest in local crime history a lot better than something her gardner mentioned.
A few other times, Dahlia doesn’t seem to be particularly bright. Angus tells her he thinks he killed Mrs Withers. Rather than immediately poke holes in Angus’ story (and ease the mind of the friendly janitor), Dahlia thinks she’s gotten a confession. Also, it’s quite a leap from a historic crime group (that may or may nor be active anymore) to the murder of a school teacher.
Owen is too reliant on Dahlia’s input for his investigation. To the point that he doesn’t even check a possible witness statement with the witness, but rather acts on Dahlia’s report of it.
The reveal of the murderer is very unsatisfactory. Dahlia barely spoke to this person, let alone that there was a confrontation. But more importantly, a lot of character actions/motivations did not ring true with what had been previously established about the character. Mrs Withers was introduced as someone that was a stickler for having things done her way. She would not wait ten years to confront someone about missing proceeds. The reason given for stealing the proceeds didn’t make much sense either. And mostly, Diantha’s reaction to Caleb’s confession was very 'okay, I don't mind, really' while what he did had really, really hurt her.
I read an ARC through NetGalley.
Dahlia is finding her footing both as a guarding to her niece and as an inn-keeper. She wants to get more involved with her niece’s school and considers participating in the school’s bake sale. Someone suggests that she should organize the bake sale, and then uses mesmer or something for Dahlia to take on these duties. The woman’s tactic is to make a suggestion and then keep quiet and let the other person talk themselves into it. I don’t really believe Dahlia would be susceptible to this trick. She would say: “I didn’t think about organizing.” And then wait for the other person to speak again and wonder if she was supposed to say anything more if the other woman didn’t speak. I suppose this set-up is needed to introduce Dahlia to the future victim.
There’s more actual sleuthing than in the previous book, but some of it is kinda of convoluted. Dahlia lies to get access to Mrs Withers classroom to look for the reports of previous bake sales. She’s taken over the organization of the bake sale for this year. She probably could have just asked for those reports. Later, when doing laundry
Spoiler
she finds a hidden door in the basement.A few other times, Dahlia doesn’t seem to be particularly bright. Angus tells her he thinks he killed Mrs Withers. Rather than immediately poke holes in Angus’ story (and ease the mind of the friendly janitor), Dahlia thinks she’s gotten a confession. Also, it’s quite a leap from a historic crime group (that may or may nor be active anymore) to the murder of a school teacher.
Owen is too reliant on Dahlia’s input for his investigation. To the point that he doesn’t even check a possible witness statement with the witness, but rather acts on Dahlia’s report of it.
The reveal of the murderer is very unsatisfactory. Dahlia barely spoke to this person, let alone that there was a confrontation. But more importantly, a lot of character actions/motivations did not ring true with what had been previously established about the character. Mrs Withers was introduced as someone that was a stickler for having things done her way. She would not wait ten years to confront someone about missing proceeds. The reason given for stealing the proceeds didn’t make much sense either.
Spoiler
If you’re making an exorbitant profit selling properties, would you really bother about a few hundred made at a bake sale?I read an ARC through NetGalley.
The story starts about a month after the death of Frank, Drew’s brother. Cheryl is grieving and lamenting what an unlikeable person the widow is. Then in comes the widow and informs them of Frank’s wishes regarding the hotel.
I’m not immediately charmed by the characters. Drew, Cheryl, Alexi and Jack are all very hostile towards Stella. My empathy actually lies with her. It’s the first in the series for me, and that means characters have to start out likeable (and not hostile and judgmental) for me to like them. Would have helped greatly if Stella’s earlier behaviour had been shown rather than told, and everyone was nice and open minded towards her, but she just made it really hard to keep that up.
Without that background the main characters just seem unsympathetic.
Jack and Alexi set out to investigate Stella’s background. What they find is that Stella is a token evil person. The only reason she’s not twirrling a moustache, is because she is a beautiful woman and doesn’t have facial hair.
Stopped reading at 42%. Stella’s been killed and despite the round the clock survaillance Jack put on the flat she’d been staying, Jack and Alexi still need 150 pages to solves this murder. And I simply don’t care that one of their friends is a possible suspect. I actually like him to be detained by the police for a while.
I read an ARC through NetGalley.
I’m not immediately charmed by the characters. Drew, Cheryl, Alexi and Jack are all very hostile towards Stella. My empathy actually lies with her. It’s the first in the series for me, and that means characters have to start out likeable (and not hostile and judgmental) for me to like them. Would have helped greatly if Stella’s earlier behaviour had been shown rather than told, and everyone was nice and open minded towards her, but she just made it really hard to keep that up.
Without that background the main characters just seem unsympathetic.
Jack and Alexi set out to investigate Stella’s background. What they find is that Stella is a token evil person. The only reason she’s not twirrling a moustache, is because she is a beautiful woman and doesn’t have facial hair.
Stopped reading at 42%. Stella’s been killed and despite the round the clock survaillance Jack put on the flat she’d been staying, Jack and Alexi still need 150 pages to solves this murder. And I simply don’t care that one of their friends is a possible suspect. I actually like him to be detained by the police for a while.
I read an ARC through NetGalley.
This started out as a wild ride, but lost me some towards the end.
I was a little apprehensive at first. The main character is in her sixties. I’ve read other books with 60+ sleuths and those were all of the darling old lady variety. No such thing with Morwenna. She may be grey-haired, but that does not stop her from getting to the bottom of things, including a little law breaking. Which I normally find very annoying when the sleuth does that, but Morwenna could have asked me to stand watch for her and I still wouldn’t have tried to talk her out of it.
Somewhere around the middle, the mystery started to sag about. Perhaps I had other things on my mind, but mostly it was that Morwenna didn’t snoop so much as had chance encounters that turned out to be usefull.
The book completely lost me towards the end with the killer’s confession. This killer could have gotten away with it if not for the confrontation with the sleuth, and is smart enough to have realized that. (But why did the killer leave a day between killing Irina and searching her office for her laptop?)
I read an ARC through NetGalley.
I was a little apprehensive at first. The main character is in her sixties. I’ve read other books with 60+ sleuths and those were all of the darling old lady variety. No such thing with Morwenna. She may be grey-haired, but that does not stop her from getting to the bottom of things, including a little law breaking. Which I normally find very annoying when the sleuth does that, but Morwenna could have asked me to stand watch for her and I still wouldn’t have tried to talk her out of it.
Somewhere around the middle, the mystery started to sag about. Perhaps I had other things on my mind, but mostly it was that Morwenna didn’t snoop so much as had chance encounters that turned out to be usefull.
The book completely lost me towards the end with the killer’s confession. This killer could have gotten away with it if not for the confrontation with the sleuth, and is smart enough to have realized that. (But why did the killer leave a day between killing Irina and searching her office for her laptop?)
I read an ARC through NetGalley.