Book 94, 2022

Southern Sass and a Battered Bride by Kate Young

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Last night I completed the book Southern Sass and a Battered Bride by Kate Young. This is the third book in the "Marygene Brown" series.

Once upon a time, Marygene dreamed of marrying her childhood sweetheart, Alex Myers. Instead, she's catering his wedding to the loathsome Lucy Carmichael. Nevertheless, Marygene wants Alex to be happy, and the catering job is good business for the Peach Cove Diner. Most of Peach Cove is in attendance, both for the nuptials and for the murder mystery role playing event that will be part of the reception. When Marygene and her BFF Betsy discover Lucy dead and covered with funnel cake batter, they think she's playing her part in the mystery. Instead, Lucy has no pulse, and EMTs can't revive her. As if that wasn't bad enough, Lucy's body disappears shortly thereafter. Now it's up to Marygene, with the help of her Mama's ghost, to get to the bottom of this all too real mystery.

Okay. As with other books in the series, there's a lot going on, and the narrative was very fast-paced. While I was certainly engrossed by the story, I was also confused. So many odd things were happening, and so many characters were acting wildly out of character that at one point I was convinced that this was all an elaborate charade, wherein everyone but Marygene was in on the "joke". Enough of this story was over the top that I really didn't enjoy it all that much, and too much was left unanswered. ( Behold (Spoilers) )

Wow, that was a lot of 'why' vomit, but that's how confusing and confounding this story was.

Favorite line: "Ain't no one ordering salads for their last meal."

Again, I was fully invested in the story, but I didn't really enjoy it all that much. It was more of a "I need to know WTF is going on" than anything else. Three stars.