C. J. Carmichael

I got three-quarters of the way through this book before abandoning it. According to the ebook software, I had about an hours worth of reading to go.

Why put it aside so close to the end? It had become obvious that this wasn't really a complete novel. I was sliding towards a cliff-hanger ending and would have had to wade my way through another book, perhaps two, to get any real resolution. I hate that.

Why did I let myself get so far into the book? Well, the premise of a show more librarian-slaughtering, cold-case serial killer being investigated by a famous true crime author who has to return to his left-as-soon-as-I-could-and-never-went-back hometown seemed intriguing.

How can you go wrong with that? C. J. Carmichael managed it by writing all the characters at arms-length so that I felt I was reading a profile rather than meeting a person. This is an achievement given that the story is told from the point of view of three characters, two women and one man, yet none of them has a distinctive voice. Throw in the fact that the crime writer turns out to be a weak, undisciplined man who has never grown up and who does not meet even the few commitments he makes and I was losing interest in him solving any murders.

I initially held out some hope for the second plot-line of the writer's sister marrying a man who is clearly going to turn out to be a controlling and abusive husband and who may have killed his first wife. Except the husband comes straight from the how-to-define-a-narcissist handbook and has no personality as an individual. This makes it harder to sympathise with the smart-but-blinded-by-lust woman he sets out to break.

I felt like I was one step away from watching "The Bold and the Beautiful" with a garnish of librarian-slaying. Now, I'm annoyed with myself for having wasted my time on this. show less

While I enjoyed this holiday offering, I perhaps didn’t enjoy it as much as others obviously have. It took me a very long time to read, because it felt a bit too Harlequin for me. By that I simply mean that though it had its moments, it felt a bit artificially put together for me; a soupçon of this popular device, a dash of that cliche. All tried and true formulas. The more I read, the more it felt to me like an author — perhaps at a publisher’s request — had written down elements show more certain to please most readers of the Christmas romance sub-genre, and then professionally hit all her marks. Because this appears to be a series, it apparently had a built-in audience. I just couldn’t get lost in this story the way I wanted to, because I felt no heartfelt connection. I’m extremely sentimental, both as a writer and a reader, which is why I love Christmas. I expected to enjoy this much more than I did, and therein lies my disappointment. Though everything is in place — just read the book description — here for a warm holiday offering, I just didn’t find that extra bit of depth, or enough moments that hit me in the heart. There are Christmas books which remain with me after many years, but while I did like A Bramble House Christmas, and have nothing against it, it will very quickly fade from my memory. show less

I somehow happened to get the e-book for free, don’t remember how and when. Found it on my bookshelf while travelling and I just couldn’t put it down. It got my attention from the very beginning, was full of action and well paced, very easy to read. My curiosity made me instantly purchase the two other parts of the trilogy.

Note: The main character trying to solve a mystery unconsciously solves a few other ones, but the main topic remains unsolved till the end and everything is only show more finally explained in the third book. Hence I don’t recommend it as a stand-alone. Nevertheless, I absolutely recommend purchasing the whole trilogy! show less

I won this e-book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. This is a quickly paced shorter mystery novel. The murderer wasn’t telegraphed and the solution tied everything together in an interesting way. The murder mystery didn’t always take the spotlight, a lot of it was more about little mysteries involved with characters’ relationships with their friends and families. I liked that it wasn’t a cutesy small town story or a super seedy small town where everyone’s secretly show more evil, which are the two types of small town stories I tend to see. People just seemed like normal people, for the most part, struggling with their relationships and their pasts. There were some typos and some odd info dumps and not a lot of description, so I wasn’t completely transported by the story, but it’s solid and I think a lot people would enjoy it. show less