Review: Entertaining book, but light on the mystery angle
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 13, 2013
This is a nice, clean book, which is listed as a mystery.  However, the mystery seems to be secondary to the stories of the characters themselves.  This isn't all bad, quite a number of characters are involved and a lot of them are both interesting and likable.  The book incorporates a little humor and just a touch of romance, along with the understated mystery aspect.  The mystery involves a murder, but there were very few clues that could have pointed even a very astute reader to the guilty party.I liked the fact that the author includes some scrap booking ideas and a few recipes at the end.I gave this book only three stars for a couple of reasons.  First, it really could have benefitted from a good proof reader.  There are a lot of sentences that appear to have an extra word or two in them.  Also some instances where the wrong word seems to be used or the verb tenses don't quite fit into the context.  I don't think that these issues are frequent enough to be overly distracting to most readers, but I do think it is indicative of a general lack of care about a product.My other beef is that the book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.  It doesn't really detract from enjoying the book, because it seems to be part of another story.  However, I detest this particular ploy to get people to buy more books.  I haven't read any other books in this series, so I don't know if this is a recurring theme or not.I enjoyed this book, and thought it stood alone fairly well.  I suspect, though, that this might be a series that would be even more enjoyable if read in order.  There are frequent references to past events in the book..