You would think, what with social distancing and all, I would be reading a lot. It turns out I haven’t. For some reason, reading hasn’t been at the top of my list lately. Of course, I’ve been really busy working on my new series. I’ve also been promoting the first book. And, because I want the third book to be the best historical mystery ever, I’ve been watching a number of YouTube videos on writing, as well as dipping into the myriad writing books I own.
But I’m always reading at least one novel, so here are two I read in April.
Revenge is Sweet (Vintage Sweets Mysteries #1)
By Kaye George
First, a disclosure:I’ve known Kaye George, at least virtually, for decades. We were members of the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime together, which is where we met. We’ve also met in person a few times. I like Kaye a lot.
She’s also been nominated for the Agatha Award several times for her both her short stories and novels. She’s written several series, including a historical mystery series featuring a Neanderthal tribe and sleuth Enga Dancing Flower. Now, that’s something completely different!
This book isn’t. Different, that is.
In standard cozy style, this book takes place in a small tourist town in Texas. The sleuth, Tally Holt, owns Tally’s Old Tyme Sweets, a shop where she makes and sells candy and cookies cooked from her grandmother’s recipes. Next door, is Bella’s Baskets, owned by Yolanda Bella.
Local handyman Gene Faust, handsome, sweet-talking ladies’ man, has one bad habit. He uses his charm to borrow money from these ladies, and he doesn’t pay it back.
So it’s no surprise that when he’s found dead in Tally’s kitchen with Yolanda’s scissors poking out of him, that there are a lot of suspects.
Needless to say, I wanted to like this book. And I did. But “liked” is the operative word. I didn’t love it. Part of that is probably me. I’ve grown tired of the modern cozy mysteries that seem to have cookie-cutter characters, settings, and plots. There was nothing particularly different about this one, except having dual points of view, which turned out to be not an asset, but a problem. The women’s voices weren’t different enough to make it easy to tell who was narrating the story at each point.
But if you like conventional modern cozies, this might be a book you’ll love.