When book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright temporarily relocates to her parents’ place in Northern California, she finds that wooden barrels aren’t the only things buried in the wine caves of Sonoma….

Excited to explore the secrets of wine country, Brooklyn attends an excavation of the caves hidden deep under her parents’ commune—and the findings are explosive. A room is unearthed, and it contains a treasure trove of artwork, rare books, a chest of jewelry…and a perfectly mummified body.

A closer examination of the murdered man’s possessions reveals a valuable first edition of Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Hidden in the book is a secret map that unveils an even greater hoard of treasures brought to California by French winemakers fleeing the Nazi invasion with the commune leader’s grandfather, Anton, among them.

As reporters and art appraisers flock to Sonoma to see the precious bounty, questions begin to rise—did Anton hide these items to protect them, or did he steal them for himself? Who is the mysterious man left for dead inside the cave? But not all crime is buried in the past. When a new presence threatens the town’s peace, Brooklyn decides to do a little excavating of her own and solve the mystery of the treasure before anyone else is written off.… ( )

I've always loved this series because the MC is a bookbinder and conservationist, and although the details aren't always strictly accurate, it's fun to read about it. Her quirky family can always be counted on for entertainment and she's surrounded by gorgeous, heroic men (although no love triangle, thank the stars).

Ripped from the Pages was no exception and should have been a 4.5/5 star read because the plot takes place in Dharma, her parents commune (Dharma redefines the term 'commune', btw) and involves secret treasures discovered in caves, the French and a bit of WWII history - what's not to love?!?!

Well, Brooklyn's moments of angst and downright bubble-headedness, that's what. The angst has a touch of "I'm the centre of the universe" to it and some of the flights of fancy she takes when speculating on the suspects are just down right ridiculous, when I think the author was aiming for endearingly wacky. There were enough of these moments to leave an impression, but not significantly alter my enjoyment of the book, so still a 4 star read. Cheers to Ms. Carlisle though for keeping Brooklyn from making any TSTL moves, and I genuinely love watching her and Derek together. (Also, thank you for bringing Gabriel back, although he seems disconcertingly legitimate.)

The murder mystery was well plotted, although I had more fun reading about the treasures. This series firmly remains on my auto-buy list. ( )

It's very much a change of pace for the series. The current day mystery doesn't start until the book is half over but the historical mystery makes up for that. It's also nice to learn more about Brooklyn's crazy and talented family along with the commune where she was raised. ( )

Brooklyn and Derek are summering in Dharma (California wine country) while their apartment is bein renovated. The Dharma Commune (where Brooklyn grew up and her family lives) is having their wine storage cave enlarged but when the workmen come across a bricked up cavern, Brooklyn is the one who notices the body during the exploration. Not only is there a body which appears to be mummified, but that are hundreds of antiques and pieces of artwork. Where did it all come from? How did it get bricked up? Who is the dead man?

The ensuing search for answers was completely mesmerizing, the historical aspects interesting. And as usual Brooklyn and Derek alluring in their connection to each other and the people around them. ( )

This is not a good book. The only redeeming feature is that, once i realized how truly bad it was a third of the way in, I still needed to know who’d done the deed and why, so I ended up skimming the rest of the book to find out. An incomplete list of things which bugged me:

the protagonist is not a strong personality
the protagonist’s boyfriend reads almost entirely like a blend of wish-fulfillment and “well, I need someone to know this thing”
whole pages were devoted to book restoration, wine tasting, and kittens without any link back to the mystery, so everything dragged
most of the book and wine facts read almost like encyclopedia articles and for the wine especially, were shared in-world with people who should really know them already
the solutions to the mysteries were anti-climactic and not just because I didn’t care enough about any of the characters
the protagonist kept reminding us of things we only learned a chapter or two ago (like, “my boyfriend, who’s British, did I mention he’s from Britain?”)
the narration otherwise felt really clunky
a lot of the setting and secondary characters felt twee and flat
there was a string of coincidences that had next to no bearing on the plot in the end so why was it even there?

Now, I know this is part of an already-started series, so maybe if I’d read from the start I’d have more connection to everything, but good writing to me means being able to make readers care regardless of which book they pick up. I’ve also come to expect better of my cozy plots too. It also doesn’t perform well on the diversity front (there are two POC, one of whom is white-passing, and no other minorities I could see) but at least it’s not actively bigoted?

2/10 ( )