Book 30, 2015
May. 10th, 2015 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chez_jaeSo, last night, I read my second e-book of the year. It was Death Comes to Town by KJ Emrick. It's the first in her "Darcy Sweet" cozy mystery series.
Darcy Sweet is a small-town girl who owns the local book store, Sweet Reads. She tries to be ordinary, but she has a sixth sense. In addition, Darcy's cat, Smudge seems to have psychic abilities of his own, and Darcy sometimes is visited by the apparition of her great-aunt Millie.
When Darcy returns home after a festival in town, Smudge leads her to the neighbor's house, where she finds the woman dead. Darcy calls the police and is content to let them handle it. However, Aunt Millie keeps knocking a particular book off the shelf in Darcy's shop, and Darcy continues to have recurring dreams about a shadowy man with a gun. As she begins to look into the murder, Darcy finds herself reluctantly attracted to new police officer Jon, while also reluctantly working with her ex-husband Jeff to put some clues together. When another murder takes place, Darcy is in a race against the clock to find the killer before she is the next victim.
This was a relatively short story with an interesting premise. It was okay for a quick, light read. However, I had some complaints about the story:
The characters were two-dimensional. All of them. Yes, I know it was a short story, but I didn't really connect with anyone, not even Darcy, whose pov the story was told in. Darcy and Jeff "meet up" again when she comes home to find him in her house, going through her things. Jeff claimed to be searching for some of his family photos that he was sure Darcy still had. They sniped and bitched at one another, and Darcy did produce a box of photos for him. All I could think was, did she not lock her door? Did he have a key? Or did he break in? If he broke in, call the police, you silly twit! When she and Jeff put their animosity aside to go over clues in the murder, Darcy begins thinking he's an alright sort of guy again. Then (SPOILER ALERT) Jeff is the next person who is murdered. Darcy doesn't seem to have any strong reaction to this at all. Not, "OMG, my ex-husband, whom I once loved, is DEAD!" Nor, "Serves the bastard right!" Just...nothing.
Also, Darcy simultaneously finds herself attracted to Jon, yet put off by his attitude. He kept blowing hot and cold to the point that I wanted to punch him in the nose. Then, inexplicably, Jon not only accepts Darcy's help in investigating the murders, but he lets her question suspects/witnesses, and he takes her along to arrest her brother-in-law, based on one small clue. WTF? You don't ARREST someone for that. You bring 'em in for questioning. Sheesh. Of course, Darcy's sister is furious with her. Oh, and before Jeff was killed, he kept hassling Darcy, claiming she still had some Very Important Photos of his. One would think that was a major plot point, but...no.
The story was very clean as far as SPaG is concerned, but sentence structure sometimes left me scratching my head. I'd need to re-read certain lines to make sense of them. Also, the author's writing style was...I don't know...immature? It read like a teen had written it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was hoping for something more juicy to sink my literary teeth into.
Overall, a fun, if slightly frivolous, story. It wasn't engaging enough for me to want to read any others in the series. I may, if they pop up as freebies in the Kindle store. Otherwise, not going to bother. This one gets three stars for being average:
★★★
Darcy Sweet is a small-town girl who owns the local book store, Sweet Reads. She tries to be ordinary, but she has a sixth sense. In addition, Darcy's cat, Smudge seems to have psychic abilities of his own, and Darcy sometimes is visited by the apparition of her great-aunt Millie.
When Darcy returns home after a festival in town, Smudge leads her to the neighbor's house, where she finds the woman dead. Darcy calls the police and is content to let them handle it. However, Aunt Millie keeps knocking a particular book off the shelf in Darcy's shop, and Darcy continues to have recurring dreams about a shadowy man with a gun. As she begins to look into the murder, Darcy finds herself reluctantly attracted to new police officer Jon, while also reluctantly working with her ex-husband Jeff to put some clues together. When another murder takes place, Darcy is in a race against the clock to find the killer before she is the next victim.
This was a relatively short story with an interesting premise. It was okay for a quick, light read. However, I had some complaints about the story:
The characters were two-dimensional. All of them. Yes, I know it was a short story, but I didn't really connect with anyone, not even Darcy, whose pov the story was told in. Darcy and Jeff "meet up" again when she comes home to find him in her house, going through her things. Jeff claimed to be searching for some of his family photos that he was sure Darcy still had. They sniped and bitched at one another, and Darcy did produce a box of photos for him. All I could think was, did she not lock her door? Did he have a key? Or did he break in? If he broke in, call the police, you silly twit! When she and Jeff put their animosity aside to go over clues in the murder, Darcy begins thinking he's an alright sort of guy again. Then (SPOILER ALERT) Jeff is the next person who is murdered. Darcy doesn't seem to have any strong reaction to this at all. Not, "OMG, my ex-husband, whom I once loved, is DEAD!" Nor, "Serves the bastard right!" Just...nothing.
Also, Darcy simultaneously finds herself attracted to Jon, yet put off by his attitude. He kept blowing hot and cold to the point that I wanted to punch him in the nose. Then, inexplicably, Jon not only accepts Darcy's help in investigating the murders, but he lets her question suspects/witnesses, and he takes her along to arrest her brother-in-law, based on one small clue. WTF? You don't ARREST someone for that. You bring 'em in for questioning. Sheesh. Of course, Darcy's sister is furious with her. Oh, and before Jeff was killed, he kept hassling Darcy, claiming she still had some Very Important Photos of his. One would think that was a major plot point, but...no.
The story was very clean as far as SPaG is concerned, but sentence structure sometimes left me scratching my head. I'd need to re-read certain lines to make sense of them. Also, the author's writing style was...I don't know...immature? It read like a teen had written it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was hoping for something more juicy to sink my literary teeth into.
Overall, a fun, if slightly frivolous, story. It wasn't engaging enough for me to want to read any others in the series. I may, if they pop up as freebies in the Kindle store. Otherwise, not going to bother. This one gets three stars for being average:
★★★
