(3/5 Stars Story; 4/5 Stars Performance)
Narrated by Rhonda Krachmer
Summary:
When Emily Fox finds a body during the course of her daily run, she naturally gets curious enough to investigate the murder. Her faithful husband, Henry, is right there playing amateur detective. Emily’s also a NY Times Bestselling author who happens to be teaching a writing course for the summer that happens to have every single suspect of the whodunit. Typical cozy mystery.
Additional Comments:
- 4/5 Stars Main Characters: Cozies live and die on their characters. Emily’s kind of normal, though she does have a cat, which I think is an unwritten requirement for middle age amateur detectives. She also has a husband. Midbook she picks up the title Mom because her best friend’s death leaves a 14-year-old kid in the lurch. Madeline isn’t exactly enough of a hellion to warrant Emily and Henry’s fears, but they collectively make a cute newbie family.
- 3.5/5 Stars Side Characters: The rest of the cast was filled in by people who had their own heartaches. Not many were very likable, except maybe Coralee, the bed and breakfast owner. However, they came across as authentic people.
- 3.5/5 Stars Plot: Nice, clean, cozy whodunit type mystery. A few nice twists are included. You can see them coming a few miles away, but they’re still satisfying.
- 2.5/5 Stars style/mechanics: Heard the audio so I can’t comment on the stuff like comma usage, but the author has a very odd way of describing phone conversations that makes them utterly unbelievable and annoying. I don’t remember exact examples, but it involved pretty much repeating something one should be able to see verbatim. At that point, it would have been way more natural to just describe both sides of the phone conversation. It wasn’t first person, so there’s no reason for the reader to not know what the other person said. Quite a few spots reiterated stuff the reader should already know. With numerous suspects, I can see why she chose to do that, but it just seemed to go overboard. It also fell into that age-old trap of the bad guy yammering about the entire plot for absolutely no good reason, so the good guys get a chance to not die.
- Cover’s nice, but I legitimately thought this would be a book about murder on a golf course. I think that false assumption came from the combination of overly green grass, the layout, and the title.
- 4/5 Performance: Narrator fit the characters very well and had enough variation to distinguish characters.
Conclusion:
Solid entry to the cozy canons.
Audiobook Promotions …
Many of my 42 audible titles are listed on Audiobooks Unleashed.
Whether you’re looking for mystery or suspense or fantasy, I’ve got a title for you. Free codes are probably on audiobooks unleashed.
Normal links go to audible. *The Amazon labeled links are affiliate links. That means I get a very small payment from Amazon if you go through with a purchase.*
Note: Filter by US if you’re looking for those codes as many titles are out.
Ones I think may still have US codes: Reshner’s Royal Ranger, Never Again, Innova, The Golden City Captives, The Holy War, Reclaim the Darklands, Eagle Eyes, Treachery Makes it Tense, Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts, The Dark Side of Science, Ashlynn’s Dreams, Nadia’s Tears, Malia’s Miracles, and Varick’s Quest
There are plenty of UK codes, but not many US ones left.
Redeemer Chronicles (Fantasy)
Awakening – Redeemer Chronicles Book 1, MG fantasy (Amazon) (free codes)
The Holy War – Redeemer Chronicles Book 2, MG fantasy (Amazon) (free codes)
Reclaim the Darklands – Redeemer Chronicles Book 3, MG fantasy (Amazon) (free codes)
River’s Edge Ransom – Prequel to Redeemer Chronicles (Amazon) (email devyaschildren @ gmail.com for free codes)
Devya’s Children Series Links:
Ashlynn’s Dreams Shorts – short stories featuring Jillian. (Amazon) (free codes)
The Dark Side of Science – official prequel to Devya’s Children; Genetically altered kids fight for the right to live. (Amazon) (Please email devyaschildren @ gmail.com for free codes)
Ashlynn’s Dreams – Genetically altered Dream Shaper learns her gift. (Amazon) (free codes)
Nadia’s Tears – Jillian tries to awaken her sister, Nadia, from a coma. (Amazon) (free codes)
Malia’s Miracles – Jillian and her siblings try to save a friend’s mother. (Amazon) (free codes)
Varick’s Quest – Jillian and Danielle get kidnapped. Nadia’s also in trouble. (Amazon) (free codes)
More Scifi:
Reshner’s Royal Ranger (epic sci-fi) just made it there. (Amazon) (free codes)
Guardian Angel Files:
Spirit’s Bane – Allister and Mina are training to be Guardians. Satan’s out to get them. (Amazon) (free codes)
Kindred Spirits – Mina’s exiled to Earth. Allister’s stuck in the Heavens. (Amazon) (free codes)