Book 89, 2022

[chez_jae]

Put Out to Pasture by Amanda Flower

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



After cleaning house today, I finished reading Put Out to Pasture by Amanda Flowers. It's the second book in the "Farm to Table" cozy mystery series, told in first-person pov by main character Shiloh Bellamy.

After leaving LA and returning home to Michigan to save the family farm, Shiloh is barely scraping by. She used up all of her savings just to get the farm out of hock, and her dream of growing organic food and opening a farm-to-table restaurant is still in the planning stages. For now, Shiloh is concentrating on needed repairs, convincing her curmudgeonly father to let her run the farm the way she wants, and dealing with a potential rival for her fledgling business. The Farm Daze festival that Shiloh holds on the farm is a huge help, until a woman is found murdered near the scarecrow and the evidence points to Shiloh's friend, Kristy. Determined to clear Kristy's name and salvage her farm's reputation, Shiloh butts into the investigation, much to the chagrin of the local chief of police. Shiloh isn't one to back down, however, not until she sees justice done.

I have not read the first book in the series, but I wasn't floundering through this one. Shiloh is an engaging character, and other characters were portrayed well, including various animals. The plot didn't exactly grip me, which meant it took forever for me to finish the book. Also, my logical brain kicked into gear...
- First of all, Shiloh had to redeem ten years worth of back taxes to save the farm. Ten years?! A quick Google search showed that a tax buyer can petition for the deed after three years, and there is absolutely no way that a valuable piece of farmland is not going to get snapped up by a tax buyer. Research, people!
- Shiloh's Farm Daze was a huge hit on the first day, but on the second day, after the murder, literally no one showed up. Number one, tourists aren't going to know what happened (and thus, would show up), and number two, a lot of people who did know what occurred are going to show up out of ghoulish curiosity. Fact.
- As every farm person knows, there is a vast difference between a hay bale and a straw bale. The author used 'hay' and 'straw' interchangeably, within the same paragraph, to describe the same bale. Research, people!
- Finally, the cozy mystery trope of someone being strangled to death via a unique scarf that another character was wearing earlier is so overdone. As if the owner of the scarf would murder someone with it and then leave it there like a beacon. Boring and cliche.

Another thing I didn't care for was just how big a bitch a particular character was to Shiloh. Her son, Quinn, seems like a potential romantic interest for Shi, and Quinn's daughter (Doreen's granddaughter) adores Shiloh. Doreen, however, is an absolute c*nt. Blah. Also, Shiloh's father is a cranky recluse, yet for no discernible reason he allowed two other characters (at separate times) into his house and yukked it up with them. It was jarringly out of character for him.

Favorite lines:
* There was something about evenings in October that felt different from an evening during any other month of the year. It was the mixture of magic and spook settling in with the evening fog and mist.
* It seemed that every bit of news in Cherry Glen went through Jessa's Place first, to the point that sometimes the people it was happening to found out about it at the diner.
* "Minnie wasn't my friend," I said. "She hated me." // "Did she ever rage-plant ivy in your yard?" // I shook my head. "No." // "Then she didn't hate you enough."

And, for good measure, here's the 'I had no idea I was holding my breath' line:
* All of the air whooshed out of my body. I didn't know I had been holding my breath."

I'm rather meh about this book. I liked the main character and many secondary ones. I enjoyed the farm setting (although the author needs to brush up on farm terminology), but the narrative was slow, clunky, and sometimes confusing. Not sure I'd read another in this series. Three stars.

Since this is the first I've read in this series, it gets put to my
1. Does the mc work at/as one of the following: baker/bakery/sweet shop/tea shop/coffee shop, library/librarian, antique/vintage shop, book store, fashion/boutique, bed & breakfast? No, she's an organic farmer.
2. Does the mc live at her (or his) place of occupation? Yes, she lives in a cabin on the farm.
3. Is the love interest involved in law enforcement? (Police officer, sheriff, detective, PI, FBI) No, he's a firefighter.
4. Does the mc have a dog/cat as a pet? Yes, she has a dog and a cat, plus some barn cats.
5. Is the mc's BFF either a gay guy or a ditzy/zany woman? No, Kristy wasn't a ditz.
6. Did the mc find the body? No, yay!
7. Did the mc wind up in mortal danger at the end of the book? Yes, she did.
8. Is the mc's mother either: dead, absent, far removed, ditzy and dithering, or overbearing/disapproving/meddling? Yes, she's dead.
9. If mother is dead/absent, does the mc have another mother-figure (grandmother, aunt, mom's friend, or an older friend)? Not really...
10. Is the mc child-free? (Either no children or else grown children--i.e. no small children to look after) Yes, she is child-free