Review: A really fun collection of short stories!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 23, 2010
I enjoyed the first Barbara Marr story and was quite happy to see this title published.  The first was a full novel and was a very fun read.  This, on the other hand, contains multiple shorts.  Most involve Barbara again plus a couple others.  The two non-Barbaras had a different flair to them and served well to show different writing styles.Without giving too much away, one involves a young lady with an interesting ability that could see her locked away in the post Civil War era South.  It is almost a borderline paranormal Southern historical mystery with a hint of romance (there may be a real genre name for that, but that is what I thought of while reading it).  It is an excellent short story as you learn enough detail and feel as though there is a full beginning, middle and end--complete within itself.  Yet it looks as though the story may actually be expanded some, to which I say Yay!  I look forward to that.The final story is actually more of a poignant piece--very much not what I was expecting but in a good way.  In other words the author did a great job.  No laughter, mystery, crimes, romance or paranormal activity...and I loved it!  Go figure.Of course the draw for this purchase are the Barbara Marr stories--one in the mystery solving mode, and three more along what I call 'slices of life' or 'normal life moments with Barbara'.  The slices were stories about the lady who is Barbara and were the perfect length for the telling--showing more of her daily life and were borderline hysterically funny.  (to the author on the off chance she reads this--my favorite was the one with the cherry blossom viewing plan.  I used to live on the Maryland side, and I FELT her pain!  And really, WHY aren't there potties in the Metro stops???? )The mystery oriented one was also enjoyable--if it were the template for a longer story I would enjoy that too.  If you hadn't read the first Marr book (the one with --shudder-- monkeys) this will not make as much sense.  However, as a follow on tale it worked great!All in all quite the nice collection of reads and I was quite pleased with this grouping of stories.  In my ideal world of split star ratings I'd be giving a 9.125.  Points off because I wished the mystery Marr would have been better if longer.  And for those who are concerned about such things, there were 1914 Kindle locations (I don't think there is a paper version of this to worry about), and at a 99 cent (at time of my purchase) price tag, well, that was just icing on the cake.JTG