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Release Date: Aug 10/11, 2020
Author: Lucy Burdette
Narrators: Author or Unknown
Genre: Mystery, Cozy Mystery
Publishers: Crooked Lane Books(e-ARC), Dreamscape Media (Audio)
I listened to this as an audiobook but it was originally sent to me as an e-ARC via NetGalley a while back. All opinions are my own and would be the same with or without the review copy.
Set between Christmas and New Year’s in Key West, Florida, you will find lots of deserts mentioned, especially Key Lime pie. There are many tourist this time of year in this town and with that comes pie contests. Hayley Snow is a food critic reporting on it.
Hayley is newly married to detective Nathan Bransford and her new mother-in-law she has never met is in town. She takes her on the local light tour while Nathan is working. While out they find a body which kicks Nathans workload up a notch, leaving Hayley more time with his mother.
While Hayley eats up the town and entertaining her, they are actively seeking answers to the same murder that Nathan asks her to stay out of. He doesn’t want her in the mix of another murder and he is worried she will get hurt. It doesn’t help that he wonders if one of his old cases may be to blame. When she tries to step back and follow his wishes, his mom decides she’s going to find the answers with or without Hayley’s help.
This was definitely a quick read. I read this as a standalone, even though this is the 10th book in the Key West Food Critic series. I was able to easily keep up with what was going on. I did have a few times where I wondered what I was missing since I hadn’t read the other books but nothing major.
I enjoyed this book well enough. I finished it rather quickly and didn’t loose interest. My favorite character was the older neighbor lady, Gloria. She was the best part of the whole book for me. Perhaps make the series focus on her instead.
I thought the mention of historical recipes was nice and would loved to have had more of that. The book was very heavy handed with mentioning Trans people who do some of the events. While I get what the author/publisher was trying to do with including them, I feel that it was worthless mentions that could have been left out. If you are going to mention something like that then perhaps actually detail scenes with those characters and form more than a passing mention. I hate when authors/publishers mention or put in a non relevant character just to seem like they are on the side of those groups. Either put them in a decent part of the book or just leave them out. Don’t just mention them for the sake of having Trans in the book a time or two. If you can’t dedicate a full scene/page it is probably best left out. That’s just my two cents worth but I’d love to know if you feel the same from the people from those selected groups. Ok, moving on.
Since that is one of my biggest pet peeve’s this book would have never gotten 5 stars from me. However, there was nothing special about this book that would have gotten it that high anyways. While I would consider reading more of this series, there is nothing her that made me think it was a must. So with that I will rate it 3 stars as it was average.
*Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC that was so kindly provided to me in exchange for my honest review.
Author
Other books by Lucy Burdette:
Link other books by author below
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*This book was received via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
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