sjmccreary: Both these series feature slightly ditzy fashion-focused women trying to solve mysteries that are really beyond their abilities. Funny, with wacky cast of characters.
InfectiousOptimist: Meg Cabot's A Size 12 is Not Fat also centers around a character much like Stephanie Plum. She's young, kind of sassy and is trying to figure out what to do with her life. In the meantime, she ends up in the middle of murder mysteries, just as Stephanie Plum does. There's also the added bonus of a similar romance with an attractive male character.… (more)
Aula: The same kind of quick, witty banter between the hero and heroine; same light reading; similiar mystery storyline; good secondary characters that add to the love interest rather than detract.
JessiAdams: Ok, so the genre isn't really the same, but I feel like people who enjoy Evanovich's characters and their interaction with each other will enjoy those same qualities in Wooding's series. Both are very funny books about a set of characters who are trying to achieve things that are really beyond them.… (more)
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I'm trying to branch out in my reading of genre fiction, including mysteries. I'd never read Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books, but they sure are popular, and they stare out at me from the new book section when I'm at the reference desk.
Stephanie becomes a bounty hunter for her cousin Vinnie after she loses her job as a lingerie buyer for a department store. You do need to suspend some disbelief, as she moves rather quickly into her new career (I would have been more cautious). The book is funny and fast-paced and the main character is appealing. I might try another in the series, but not right away ...
This is good airplane/waiting room/beach reading. ( )
I probably would have given this two stars because I really didn't like the atmosphere of the book, but it was pretty entertaining, and it had me laughing occasionally, so I bumped it up to three. The plot wasn't anything awesome or interesting. It was following along on a completely amateur bounty hunter's adventures that was fun. It was believable in that Stephanie was really stupid and clumsy for most of the book. Actually she wasn't stupid. She had a lot of good ideas. The problem was always carrying them out. I appreciated that she didn't just go from a career as a lingerie buyer to someone who really knew what she was doing right away. She had to learn all the basics, including how to fire a gun. I definitely didn't want to rate this over three stars because there were quite a few crude and gross parts. I'm still undecided whether I will want to read anymore of these books. Probably if I want something completely brainless to read. ( )
Stephanie Plum is so smart, so honest, and so funny that her narrative charm could drive a documentary on termites. But this tough gal from New Jersey, an unemployed discount lingerie buyer, has a much more interesting story to tell: She has to say that her Miata has been repossessed and that she's so poor at the moment that she just drank her last bottle of beer for breakfast. She has to say that her only chance out of her present rut is her repugnant cousin Vinnie and his bail-bond business. She has to say that she blackmailed Vinnie into giving her a bail-bond recovery job worth $10,000 (for a murder suspect), even though she doesn't own a gun and has never apprehended a person in her life. And she has to say that the guy she has to get, Joe Morelli, is the same creep who charmed away her teenage virginity behind the pastry case in the Trenton bakery where she worked after school.
If that hard-luck story doesn't sound compelling enough, Stephanie's several unsuccessful attempts at pulling in Joe make a downright hilarious and suspenseful tale of murder and deceit. Along the way, several more outlandish (but unrelentingly real) characters join the story, including Benito Ramirez, a champion boxer who seems to be following Stephanie Plum wherever she goes.
Janet Evanovich shares an authentic feel for the streets of Trenton in her debut mystery (she developed her talents in a string of romance novels before creating Ms. Plum), and her tough, frank, and funny first-person narrator offers a winning mix of vulgarity and sensitivity. Evanovich is certainly among the best of the new voices to emerge in the mystery field of the 1990s. --Patrick O'Kelley
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:38:18 -0500)
Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, home to wiseguys, average Joes, and Stephanie Plum, who sports a big attitude and even bigger money problems (since losing her job as a lingerie buyer for a department store). Stephanie needs cash-fast-but times are tough, and soon she's forced to turn to the last resort of the truly desperate: family. Stephanie lands a gig at her sleazy cousin Vinnie's bail bonding company. She's got no experience. But that doesn't matter. As does the fact that the bail jumper in question is local vice cop Joe Morelli. From the time he first looked up her dress to the time he first got into her pants, to the time Steph hit him with her father's Buick, M-o-r-e-l-l-i has spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e. And now the hot guy is in hot water-wanted for murder. Abject poverty is a great motivator for learning new skills, but being trained in the school of hard knocks by people like psycho prizefighter Benito Ramirez isn't. Still, if Stephanie can nab Morelli in a week, she'll make a cool ten grand. All she has to do is become an expert bounty hunter overnight-and keep herself from getting killed before she gets her man.… (more)
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http://abshepherdsreinventedreader.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/one-for-money-by-janet-evanovich-my.html
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