Helpful Score: 1
I wanted to like this book. I really did. Unfortunately, this was 274 pages of mix-n-match cozy cliches.
First, the author had a tough time narrowing down the focus for her new series. Cooking cozies! They sell, right? But .. several other cozy authors are going the bookstore route. Maybe that's it. But paranormal cozies are all the rage right now .... You get the picture.
With all these different "hooks" the book was a bit disjointed.
Add to that, a paranoid heroine who could win a gold medal if leaping to conclusions were an Olympic event, and a cast of supporting characters that were almost schizophrenic in their desire to see the lead character investigate-be safe-investigate-be safe ... it was enough to give me whiplash.
I don't think there was an honest, believable emotional response in the whole book. And I'd love to meet the police chief who let her/his mother steer the direction of a murder investigation with her hysterical, hateful rumor-mongering and gossiping.
First, the author had a tough time narrowing down the focus for her new series. Cooking cozies! They sell, right? But .. several other cozy authors are going the bookstore route. Maybe that's it. But paranormal cozies are all the rage right now .... You get the picture.
With all these different "hooks" the book was a bit disjointed.
Add to that, a paranoid heroine who could win a gold medal if leaping to conclusions were an Olympic event, and a cast of supporting characters that were almost schizophrenic in their desire to see the lead character investigate-be safe-investigate-be safe ... it was enough to give me whiplash.
I don't think there was an honest, believable emotional response in the whole book. And I'd love to meet the police chief who let her/his mother steer the direction of a murder investigation with her hysterical, hateful rumor-mongering and gossiping.
Richard M. (algernon99) -
FAIR WARNING: I am going to grumble a bit about publishing trends in cozy mysteries before I get to my comments about this book. Hang in there; there is an actual review before the end of this clump of writing.
I dont know how many cozy mystery series Ive read or read about recently that feature celebrity chefs. I would hate to be a celebrity chef, because the world apparently believes they are all rude, egocentric, monomaniacal, power-hungry louts. Even the good ones. And they tend to get killed a lotusually early in the book.
Theres another set of requirements, by the way, to be a successful cozy mystery. Or so it would appear. You need a bookstore, at least one cat, arrogant chefs or authors, and often a slightly off-kilter older female relative with some sort of woo-woo psychic proclivities. Oh, yes, you also need recipes at the book. It doesnt matter if your book has nothing to do with cooking; you need to figure out some reason to sneak recipes into the back of the book.
Setting those unfortunate publishing trends aside, lets talk about this book here, Final Sentence. Pretend that the presence of a bookstore, a cat, an arrogant celebrity chef and author as murder victim, an aunt who reads tarot and gets feelings about things dont bother you. Other than that, how was the book?
For me, there are many things that make a cozy mystery fun to read and make me want to follow subsequent books in the series. Most important is the main character, the protagonist. She (they are almost always women, almost always single, and almost always in their early 30s) must be someone whose thinking is not alien to my way of thinking. She must have values that I can relate to. She can have flawseven lots of flawsbut she cant be a mean-spirited or manipulative person. She must be basically honorable.
Similar criteria apply to the deuteragonist. (I just learned that word this week. Its the person second in importance in the story to the protagonist.) Usually, in these books, the deuteragonist is the main characters best friend. Sometimes shes a close relative like an aunt.
OK, thats probably enough generalities. Back to Ms. Gerbers book. There were some things that bothered me, even though she follows the formula discussed above rather well. There were no problems with the pro- and deuteragonists. Jenna Hart, the main character, her aunt, and one of her best friends (who appears mid-book) are good-hearted people who behave in a manner that one can sort of believe.
One problem for me was the antagonist, the nemesis who at every turn is trying to thwart and hurt Jenna. Shes a bitter older woman named Pepper who will do anything to embarrass, hurt, or distress Jenna and her family. I have a problem with openly mean people as characters. Ive never known anyone like that (thank goodness). Im sure they exist, but I just dont like to be around them, even in fiction. Oh, murderers, criminals, and other evil-doers are no problem for me. It is a murder mystery, after all. But people who scheme, manipulate, gossip, connive, and even openly try to hurt peoples reputations out of sheer mean-spiritedness turn me off to such an extent that I want to give up on the book just to avoid further contact with that person.
In this book, theres a quick paragraph or two near the end where an apology to Pepper for the decades-long source of her hatred purports to cure the problem. Im not buying it. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next book.
Another problem is the way that every little possible clue blossoms in Jennas mind and in multiple paragraphs from the author into a full motive for murder and an entire scenario of how the murder must have been done. After the tenth or fifteenth time, it gets tiresome. (What? There werent anywhere near that many scenarios? Well, it seemed like it to me.)
If youre getting the impression that this was an awful book, dont. Its really a pretty good story, with interesting relationships and situations. The basic setup of a recently widowed Jenna returning to her small town roots to live with relatives and co-own a bookstore that sells mostly cookbooks works nicely. It should give the author enough room to figure out at least semi-believable murder situations. There will be time to develop the beginnings of a nice romance that is starting in this book. Theres plenty to look forward to in the next couple of books.
All I can really tell you is that I read the book with some interest, but every session with the book was marred by some little tickle of dissatisfaction, disbelief, or awareness of an awkwardness in the story line. I hope the subsequent books will overcome these problems, because I really want to like these books.
I dont know how many cozy mystery series Ive read or read about recently that feature celebrity chefs. I would hate to be a celebrity chef, because the world apparently believes they are all rude, egocentric, monomaniacal, power-hungry louts. Even the good ones. And they tend to get killed a lotusually early in the book.
Theres another set of requirements, by the way, to be a successful cozy mystery. Or so it would appear. You need a bookstore, at least one cat, arrogant chefs or authors, and often a slightly off-kilter older female relative with some sort of woo-woo psychic proclivities. Oh, yes, you also need recipes at the book. It doesnt matter if your book has nothing to do with cooking; you need to figure out some reason to sneak recipes into the back of the book.
Setting those unfortunate publishing trends aside, lets talk about this book here, Final Sentence. Pretend that the presence of a bookstore, a cat, an arrogant celebrity chef and author as murder victim, an aunt who reads tarot and gets feelings about things dont bother you. Other than that, how was the book?
For me, there are many things that make a cozy mystery fun to read and make me want to follow subsequent books in the series. Most important is the main character, the protagonist. She (they are almost always women, almost always single, and almost always in their early 30s) must be someone whose thinking is not alien to my way of thinking. She must have values that I can relate to. She can have flawseven lots of flawsbut she cant be a mean-spirited or manipulative person. She must be basically honorable.
Similar criteria apply to the deuteragonist. (I just learned that word this week. Its the person second in importance in the story to the protagonist.) Usually, in these books, the deuteragonist is the main characters best friend. Sometimes shes a close relative like an aunt.
OK, thats probably enough generalities. Back to Ms. Gerbers book. There were some things that bothered me, even though she follows the formula discussed above rather well. There were no problems with the pro- and deuteragonists. Jenna Hart, the main character, her aunt, and one of her best friends (who appears mid-book) are good-hearted people who behave in a manner that one can sort of believe.
One problem for me was the antagonist, the nemesis who at every turn is trying to thwart and hurt Jenna. Shes a bitter older woman named Pepper who will do anything to embarrass, hurt, or distress Jenna and her family. I have a problem with openly mean people as characters. Ive never known anyone like that (thank goodness). Im sure they exist, but I just dont like to be around them, even in fiction. Oh, murderers, criminals, and other evil-doers are no problem for me. It is a murder mystery, after all. But people who scheme, manipulate, gossip, connive, and even openly try to hurt peoples reputations out of sheer mean-spiritedness turn me off to such an extent that I want to give up on the book just to avoid further contact with that person.
In this book, theres a quick paragraph or two near the end where an apology to Pepper for the decades-long source of her hatred purports to cure the problem. Im not buying it. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next book.
Another problem is the way that every little possible clue blossoms in Jennas mind and in multiple paragraphs from the author into a full motive for murder and an entire scenario of how the murder must have been done. After the tenth or fifteenth time, it gets tiresome. (What? There werent anywhere near that many scenarios? Well, it seemed like it to me.)
If youre getting the impression that this was an awful book, dont. Its really a pretty good story, with interesting relationships and situations. The basic setup of a recently widowed Jenna returning to her small town roots to live with relatives and co-own a bookstore that sells mostly cookbooks works nicely. It should give the author enough room to figure out at least semi-believable murder situations. There will be time to develop the beginnings of a nice romance that is starting in this book. Theres plenty to look forward to in the next couple of books.
All I can really tell you is that I read the book with some interest, but every session with the book was marred by some little tickle of dissatisfaction, disbelief, or awareness of an awkwardness in the story line. I hope the subsequent books will overcome these problems, because I really want to like these books.
Really? You want me to believe that Jenna decides to move back home to help her aunt open a bookstore cum restaurant with the following timetable: Day one - the two of them clean and paint the entire store which has been sitting empty for many, many years. Day two: they put out the stock and hire a chef for the restaurant. Day three they do something. Day four they have the grand opening for both the bookstore and the restaurant which earns rave reviews for the gourmet food. Really? The chef has one day to order supplies, hire kitchen and dining room help and manages to be a big hit the next day? Jenna is supposed to be the manager of the bookstore, yet she is rarely in the store, always running off to investigate the murder of the celebrity chef - leaving her aunt and a friend to man the cash register and deal with customers. The whole premise was totally ridiculous. It was pretty much a waste of my time.
I thought this was a pretty decent book so I was surprised to see people giving it only one star. There were a couple of annoying elements, but it kept me guessing til the end. I plan to read the next in this series.
