chez_jae | Book 81, 2020

Later Gator by Julia Mills

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I finished reading an ebook last night. It was Later Gator by Julia Mills, and it's the first part of her "Southern Fried Sass" series. Story was told in first person pov. It began in the pov of Faith Fairyflower, witch, switched to Beauregard St Croix, alligator shifter, and ended in Faith's pov again. Frankly, I believe if you're going to write in first person pov, you need to commit to one character.

When Faith needs a change in her life, she and her sisters, Daisy and Rosie, move to Hairy Wart, Louisiana to open their own detective agency, Southern Fried Sass. Business is slow, so when they get a call to investigate missing chickens, Faith jumps at the chance to sink her teeth into a real case. In the course of their investigation, they stumble across a dead body. Finally, a real case to investigate! Unfortunately, Sheriff St Croix shows up to take over. Faith and Beau are attracted to one another, but neither will admit to it; instead, they argue and bicker while everyone else around them wishes they'd just hop into bed and get on with it.

When Beau goes to visit his family in the swamp, he's sucked into a vortex and deposited in the witchy version of Purgatory. There, he discovers Faith being held prisoner and meets up with one of her family's worst enemies, Wanda Wiggley. Beau and Faith will need to cooperate and work together if they are to get out of this predicament alive.

The story was hilarious and I enjoyed it, but I felt like I was missing out on quite a bit. This is billed as the first in a series, but there was a lot of backstory that was referred to, including another sister of Faith's (named Harmony) and their vile father. There were editing errors a'plenty, as well. Plot did not flow smoothly. Since we switched to Beau's pov, we have no idea how Faith ended up in Wanda's hands, and then the two of them went from dancing around their attraction to one another to declaring their undying love.

Favorite lines:
♦ We don't know why he did it or what he hoped to gain, just that he was, and presumably still is, dumber than a burlap bag of dicks and greedier than an old hog...
♦ There was no doubt in my mind that the shit was about to hit the fan and in case you were wondering, I was cast in the role of the poop.
♦ "Is it my fault I'm damn near as old as Methuselah and still like cartoons?"

This earns an average score. It probably deserved a two for lack of cohesion, but the humor bumps it up to a three.