Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Booked for Trouble by Eva Gates


First Line: I love my mother. Truly, I do.

Lucy has found her perfect home and her perfect job: resident and librarian of the Bodie Island Lighthouse. She loves bonding with the library cat, walking on the beach, and book club. Needless to say, having the attentions of two handsome men certainly doesn't hurt either. What she does not need is to have her mother show up in an attempt to drag her back to Boston, but that's exactly what socialite Suzanne Richardson does.

When she's not trying to bend Lucy to her will, she picks a public fight with a woman who turns up dead outside the library the very next day. Suzanne is Suspect Numero Uno-- which means that Lucy has to track down a killer.

I'm still enjoying both the popularity of this fictional lighthouse library and its setting, but I have to be honest and admit that I picked up Booked for Trouble with a bit of trepidation. It's a quirk of mine, but I do not care for high maintenance parents in the cozies that I read, and that's exactly what Lucy's mother is. I am happy to report that although Suzanne is not the type of person to ever become my BFF, that angle of the book was not as bad as I'd anticipated. Whew!

Lucy continues to be an interesting main character, but too many of the secondary characters are two-dimensional. Take Charlene for example. It would appear that her sole reason for existence is to annoy everyone with her passion for rap music-- and she's the only one who really stands out in my mind. The rest are a kind of blur, and I hope book three is the "breakout" book for them. Speaking of breaking out, Lucy's two love interests need to stop spinning their wheels and start making some moves. 

Although I enjoyed reading how Lucy finally found the killer, I knew the person's identity early on due to a certain peculiarity in the dialogue. I can be strange that way sometimes.  And have any of you noticed that the latest thing in cozies seems to be cross-marketing-- that is, mentioning books by other cozy writers? At least it fits in here because Lucy is a librarian, but I've been noticing it in several books lately. I realize that things like this place a book clearly within its timeframe, but I prefer my books without branding, marketing, or suggestive selling.

Booked for Trouble is a good solid mystery with a winning main character and a perfect setting; however, it needs some of its other components to be fleshed out more so this series can shine the way I know that it can.


Booked for Trouble by Eva Gates
ISBN: 9780451470942
NAL/Obsidian © 2015
Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

Cozy Mystery, #2 Lighthouse Library mystery
Rating: C+/B-
Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen


 

6 comments:

  1. You've hit on a couple of things, Cathy, that make me less-than-thrilled about some cosy mysteries. The best ones focus on characters and character development. So when the characters aren't three-dimensional, that can make me cranky. So can cross-marketing. Still, the setting appeals to me. And what's not to love about a library?

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    1. The lighthouse library? I love it. And cross-marketing authors and book titles works in this library setting.

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  2. That's interesting what you say about the 'cross marketing'. I do enjoy other books being mentioned in a storyline, but I do want it to make sense. For example, Walt Longmire occasionally talks about other books - classics usually. And I did love the way that Carolyn Hart highlighted other mysteries in her Annie Darling books. I think for her, it was more of a 'leg up' to writers with less experience. I haven't started this series yet, but I was interested because of the author (Vicki Delany). :-)

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    1. Yes, I'll follow Vicki Delany anywhere because I normally enjoy her writing. If a character's a reader or a librarian or a bookseller, it does make sense to mention authors and titles.

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  3. Booked for Trouble looks interesting to me, particularly the setting of a lighthouse library! Like Kay said, Carolyn Hart smoothly includes authors and book titles and it just fits. I'd have to read this cozy mystery to see if it makes sense though. Thanks for the review.

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    1. It does make sense because she's a librarian, but only cozy authors and titles are mentioned. Of course cozies have gotten dissed a lot over the years, but something about this still bothers me. Call me cranky! LOL

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