Review: Pretty Much a Hot Mess
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 9, 2013
The prequel shows promise and led me into the first book which started off well.  At least until the chapter when the body is discovered.  Then the author seemed to loose focus.  Sam's character suddenly reveled she has mob connections and we are introduced to a group of people called the Mom Squad.  They somehow play a role in solving the mystery  You are also introduced to Nick's crazy aunt which sets up the second book.In the second book the crazy aunt has a voodoo curse go wrong and everybody including the Sherriff is running around trying to undo the curse with more magic.  Which by the way the author insists on misspelling.  Some part of the story are humorous but it would have benefited from a good editor.  Sam's character expresses interest in learning magic (my spelling not theirs) in this book.Now we hit the third book in which we again find Sam's Mom squad and now we find out that Sam is related to Santa Claus and the Grams character is dating father time.  We also see the return of Magic in the form of the queen of the witches.  So if Sam wanted to learn more about magic why didn't she just go to this witch she already knows?The authors seem to be addicted the unbelievable plot twist school of writing.  They also like to change voices pretty much every chapter from Nick to Sam unless they don't.  Kind of like the book I couldn't really find a pattern.  They started out with a good premise and then seemed to say "Oh well lets write this half stoned".Truthfully I would have given it two stars but, knowing what is involved in writing a book and given the fact it did hold my attention if only to find out what whacked out thing they would introduce next I gave it three.If you are looking for a good mystery this isn't it.  If you are looking for a book that will keep you guessing if only as to what or who they will introduce next this would be a good choice.  I just wished that after they introduce these new characters they would do a better job of developing them.