A review by chelle493
Dead Roots by Nancy J. Cohen

2.0

This was the first book of this series that I have read and most likely the last. Although there were interesting plots (always love hidden passages!) overall, I was bored. I also thought the names were ridiculous. The groundskeeper was Mulch, the hotel manager was Butler, the chef was Brownie, the "ghostbuster" was Spector, and the event coordinator was Champagne Glass. The main character did not appeal to me. She is constantly going by herself to places that she knows are dangerous even though there are tons of family around that she could snag to go with her. She is constantly omitting important pieces of information that her fiance should know because of interruptions. For instance, she's about to tell him something important about the case when a relative approaches to talk about some menial thing. The relative then leaves and the topic is just dropped. Could you not just continue with the conversation? There is also A LOT of sex (nothing R rated). If I wanted to read a romance novel, I wouldn't have picked a mystery. A little romance in a mystery can add to it, but this one just went down that path too many times for one book.

There were also a lot of plot holes. One of the biggest is that this is a mystery about the main characters grandparents. Her mom is at the resort with her and yet she rarely talks to her the whole time. Why would she not use someone who was there and knows first hand. There is an incident mentioned that happened to her mother's sister that is pretty tragic, but is never brought up to the mother. (As a note, it could actually be her mother that the incident is about and the editor missed the character's name change mid book--I really don't know. It was that confusing).