A review by winemakerssister
Killer Jam by Karen MacInerney

3.0

A cozy mystery with a little romance. It was very slow to start, but got better in the 2nd half so I'm rounding up to a 3. It reminds me of the mystery series' on the Hallmark channel - it would fit right in with those.

There were a few blatant editing errors: Lucy mentions bringing the jelly to 104 degrees. Since that's pretty much lukewarm, it is obviously the wrong number. The jelly stage on the candy thermometer is 220 F. And how can she have little tomatoes in the spring when the cucumbers are just sprouting? Even if she started the tomatoes indoors, the plants would still be too immature to fruit. I really dislike errors like that - they take me out of the story, and I begin to wonder why the author included them if she wasn't sure about their accuracy.

Cover: Fitting for a cozy mystery.
Narrator: Ouch! So painful. Most Texan women (other than Lucy) were given high, childish voices with heavy accents. Really difficult to listen to.
Hogwarts Sorting Hat: Interesting because Lucy has changed her life and now wants to be a Hufflepuff.

Themes: homesteading, Texas, ex-newspaper reporter, murder mystery, farm, small town