Heather F. (AZmom875) -
Helpful Score: 1
I wasnt impressed with book 2, therefore waited more than a year to read book 3. I now wish I had plowed on, cause book 3 was a well done cozy mystery.
I think there are a few common elements in a cozy that need to come together: the gimmick, setting, interesting characters, and the police mentality, and the mystery.
The gimmick: the hobby or skill or job that the characters have in common that moves the mystery along, and helps them with the clues. In this case it is knitting. I like my gimmicks to be interesting and even informative, which is what I liked most about this series in book 1 and book 3.
Our character were much more distinguished and likeable in this book, and they leave their usual setting and head 2 hours out to a Spa. It was a good setting. There was a good balance of introducing the ideals about a spa too.
Police mentality can go many ways, You can have the local police being hostile, corrupt, bumbling, needy, abrupt and business like, or ones who confide too much info about the crime. Often the main female sleuth is dating the police investigator and that gets old. That is not the case in this book as they are out of town, and the police are just efficient nice men, who listen to what our knitting gals have to say.
The mystery in this one had a good balance not too confusing, enough suspects, and our women help solve it with their knitting clues.
This book was so good and I read it in a few hours, as I wanted to get to the the ending. I am off to read book 4 next, as I had it in my To be Read Pile. I hope it is just as good.
I think there are a few common elements in a cozy that need to come together: the gimmick, setting, interesting characters, and the police mentality, and the mystery.
The gimmick: the hobby or skill or job that the characters have in common that moves the mystery along, and helps them with the clues. In this case it is knitting. I like my gimmicks to be interesting and even informative, which is what I liked most about this series in book 1 and book 3.
Our character were much more distinguished and likeable in this book, and they leave their usual setting and head 2 hours out to a Spa. It was a good setting. There was a good balance of introducing the ideals about a spa too.
Police mentality can go many ways, You can have the local police being hostile, corrupt, bumbling, needy, abrupt and business like, or ones who confide too much info about the crime. Often the main female sleuth is dating the police investigator and that gets old. That is not the case in this book as they are out of town, and the police are just efficient nice men, who listen to what our knitting gals have to say.
The mystery in this one had a good balance not too confusing, enough suspects, and our women help solve it with their knitting clues.
This book was so good and I read it in a few hours, as I wanted to get to the the ending. I am off to read book 4 next, as I had it in my To be Read Pile. I hope it is just as good.
Joy L. (vintagejoy) -
Great book! The Black Sheep Knitters take a weekend trip to a spa at a beautiful inn in the Berkshires, where Maggie has been asked to do some knitting workshops. The owner of the spa, Dr. Max, runs the place with alot of new age ideas, but it is not long before "old" age ideas and problems begin. Maggie and company are in the middle of another murder investigation that certainly was not on the program for the weekend. Five Stars.
Brenda H. (booksinvt) -
This is the third installment in the Black Sheep series. It picks up with all of the main characters going on a weekend spa retreat. If you haven't read the first two the author provides a short character profile at the start to help you get acquainted. While not as much fun as the ones set in Plum Harbor it was a quick and easy read. The only negative about the book is the glaring grammatical and typographical errors that appear about 2/3 of the way through the book. It's almost as if the proofreader gave up or the computer quit working. These errors were a significant distraction from the story as I found myself saying "Wait a minute, What?" Despite this, I look forward to the next one.
Good story
