My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The blurb: Hadley James is finally living the life she’s always wanted: making jam and selling it at the local farmers market. When a cat-sitting job turns into a murder investigation, life no longer seems so perfect.
Her twin brother, a deputy sheriff, is on the case but they’ve always done everything together and she can’t help but get involved. Following a trail of crafty clues, the James twins learn that their sleepy town might be harboring more darkness than they could’ve imagined.
My review: I started reading this book in May and finished it in September. That possibly tells you everything. It certainly does me and explains the three-star rating.
I cannot put my finger on what was wrong, but I felt as if I had to drag myself through the pages. In all honesty, I did abandon it at one stage and then thought “no, I want to finish it” and returned to the story.
It’s a cozy mystery book so it makes sense that the main character, her twin brother and best friend set out to solve a murder in their town. However, a side theme in the book dealt with all things craft, such as making jam, knitting, painting. I love craft so I was fine with that too. However, the side theme wasn’t weaved into the storyline well enough (in my opinion). Because of that, I believe the craft side of the storyline distracted from the murder side. This meant that I wasn’t able to become totally absorbed by the mystery and basically I lost interest in the whole thing.
The author’s writing is good. The workings of the mystery and how it came together was good. But putting it all together didn’t quite work for me.