pkrebs's review
2.0
I just couldn't get into this book. Of course there was a murder, but the person
sarahknowsthestory's review
4.0
This book got progressively better as I got futher and further in - I like that the life of the heroine revolves around her scrapbooking shop, but it's not all about that. A nice cast of characters and sufficient tension to make you want to cheer for the goodies and boo the baddies. I really only wish it were longer, and that the story had more time to develop! I will definately be seeking out and reading others in this series, and the Tea Shop books also by this author.
scraps_n_needles's review
2.0
***2.5 Stars***
Do you ever “hate read?” Or is that just me? It’s like hate watching “The Bachelor,” you know you shouldn’t watch, but you keep doing it anyway. That’s how I am with this scrapbooking-themed cozy mystery series by Laura Childs. I know that I’m going to be highly annoyed while reading it, and yet I’m going to read it anyway.
Published back in ‘04, “Bound For Murder” is about Carmela, a New Orleans scrapbook store owner, who tries to solve the murder of an acquaintance’s fiancé.
Positives first: As with most of Childs’ books, the bones are actually pretty good. It’s pretty standard cozy mystery stuff. At one point, Carmela visits one of New Orleans’ famous cemeteries. And the way Childs described it, it felt so right. The mood, the look, all of it... I was charmed.
The Negatives: I think the main issue is that she needs a better editor. It’s just all sorts of messy. She overuses characters’ first names. Sometimes she will overuse their whole names (first and last). There was one page where she said one guy’s whole name three times. He’s the only person in the book with that name. And it’s not a character tick. It’s just weird...
As someone who’s lived her entire life 10 minutes outside of New Orleans, it never seems like the author gets it’s right. I mean occasionally she does, like the cemetery, but generally it’s off. It feels like she came to the city for a week and is now pretending to write a book as if she was born here. (The main character is from the NOLA area, it’s not like she’s a newcomer to the town.) She said that the Warehouse District was ONCE called that, but it’s still called that. And she was obsessed with using cellars and basements throughout this book. We do not have cellars and basements here. NOLA is built on top of a swamp and in a bowl. It is not possible for us to have these things. There are buildings that have “basements” which are sort of like unfinished ground floors, but the main house and the front door is on the floor above that. I tried, really I did, to give some grace to the basement thing thinking maybe she was talking about that, but she clearly wasn’t. She would say that it had “earthen walls” and “the snake from the cellar” and it just became a big nope.
Sometimes it’s a struggle to like Carmela, the lead in our story. For example, when she asks the dead guy’s fiancé how she is feeling and she says that she’s mad. Carmela responds “quizzically,” saying “You’re mad?” Golly gee Carmela, of course she’s mad, her fiancé was just MURDERED two days before their wedding. We are supposed to like the leads in our cozy mysteries.
It’s the messiest in the first third or so of the book. I could actually go on about this book’s ridiculousness, but I’ll refrain. After that it gets significantly less annoying and it becomes much easier to enjoy the book.
Do you ever “hate read?” Or is that just me? It’s like hate watching “The Bachelor,” you know you shouldn’t watch, but you keep doing it anyway. That’s how I am with this scrapbooking-themed cozy mystery series by Laura Childs. I know that I’m going to be highly annoyed while reading it, and yet I’m going to read it anyway.
Published back in ‘04, “Bound For Murder” is about Carmela, a New Orleans scrapbook store owner, who tries to solve the murder of an acquaintance’s fiancé.
Positives first: As with most of Childs’ books, the bones are actually pretty good. It’s pretty standard cozy mystery stuff. At one point, Carmela visits one of New Orleans’ famous cemeteries. And the way Childs described it, it felt so right. The mood, the look, all of it... I was charmed.
The Negatives: I think the main issue is that she needs a better editor. It’s just all sorts of messy. She overuses characters’ first names. Sometimes she will overuse their whole names (first and last). There was one page where she said one guy’s whole name three times. He’s the only person in the book with that name. And it’s not a character tick. It’s just weird...
As someone who’s lived her entire life 10 minutes outside of New Orleans, it never seems like the author gets it’s right. I mean occasionally she does, like the cemetery, but generally it’s off. It feels like she came to the city for a week and is now pretending to write a book as if she was born here. (The main character is from the NOLA area, it’s not like she’s a newcomer to the town.) She said that the Warehouse District was ONCE called that, but it’s still called that. And she was obsessed with using cellars and basements throughout this book. We do not have cellars and basements here. NOLA is built on top of a swamp and in a bowl. It is not possible for us to have these things. There are buildings that have “basements” which are sort of like unfinished ground floors, but the main house and the front door is on the floor above that. I tried, really I did, to give some grace to the basement thing thinking maybe she was talking about that, but she clearly wasn’t. She would say that it had “earthen walls” and “the snake from the cellar” and it just became a big nope.
Sometimes it’s a struggle to like Carmela, the lead in our story. For example, when she asks the dead guy’s fiancé how she is feeling and she says that she’s mad. Carmela responds “quizzically,” saying “You’re mad?” Golly gee Carmela, of course she’s mad, her fiancé was just MURDERED two days before their wedding. We are supposed to like the leads in our cozy mysteries.
It’s the messiest in the first third or so of the book. I could actually go on about this book’s ridiculousness, but I’ll refrain. After that it gets significantly less annoying and it becomes much easier to enjoy the book.
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