Marie F Martin

So many authors struggle to provide a smooth transition from past memories to present-day settings in their work, but Marie F. Martin does it with such skill! Blinny (Blanche) sounds like a wonderful person who has been through the fire and has come out of it, with some life-lasting scars. She adored her mother, loved her father, but I think too much was expected of her at such young ages. And being sent away certainly didn't help her deal with the immeasurable amount of guilt she carried. show more As for her sister, Odette, I shifted between moments of pity for her and moments of complete annoyance. Losing a mother at approximately age 3 is, no doubt, traumatic, and definitely impacted her mental state. BUT i think there were quite a number of occasions where Odette came across as manipulative and downright ugly towards Blanche. Alice was a character that was difficult for me to like in the beginning. But as the story went on, she didn't appear to be so bad. And now, we get to Didier: I grew to dislike him more and more. He just didn't measure up in the daddy department.

This book is definitely a psychological mystery/thriller. Things are not always what they seem, and childhood memories don't always provide the complete picture. Good work, Ms. Martin! show less

In Don't Mess With Mrs. Sedgewick, author Marie F. Martin weaves an entertaining and fast-paced cozy mystery that follows the crazy adventures of four sassy widows whose lives get turned upside down when a blackmailing maid they employed uncovers long-buried secrets in all their lives, and threatens to bring criminal charges if they don't pay her hush money. So what's four elderly friends going to do when all hell breaks loose .... why solve the mystery of course!

Don't Mess With Mrs. show more Sedgewick is a well written story that has enough quirky characters, intrigue, suspense, humor, and drama that easily draws the reader into these four spunky ladies' amateur sleuth adventures. You can't help but love the four friends, their witty banter and their eccentricities will keep the reader in stitches, the intriguing plot twists will keep you guessing, while cheering the ladies on as even calamity can't stop them from embarking on their crazy mystery investigative adventures!

Don't Mess With Mrs. Sedgewick is a delightfully eccentric whodunit tale that cozy mystery fans will want to add to their reading list!

Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from the author / publisher in exchange for my honest review and participation in a virtual book tour event hosted by Reading Addiction Book Tours.

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I didn't hate it, but I'm still wondering why I read the entire book. The author's descriptions of land and prairie were plentiful and very descriptive. The characters had great potential. The story builds and builds, and then 38 years go by in a matter of pages. Thirty-eight years in which, as far as I can tell, people lived with spite, hate, pride, lonliness and guilt and didn't do a darn thing about it. The story stopped, but it didn't feel like an ending. I have yet to figure out why the show more characters behaved as they did, for as long as they did. There were plenty of reasons and justifications and back-story, but I never felt like those things explained the lives and time that was wasted. It feels like the outline for the story was a great idea, but the details failed to round the story out. A day later, and I'm still upset that I spent what little time I have on this book. show less

75 of 75 for 2015. Set in the rolling prairie land of north central Montana, this is the story of relationships, good, bad, indifferent, that come to surround us as we live our lives. Blinny has moved back to the ranch land where she was born, and is intent on building her own home, rather than sharing her father's home with his second wife. As we move through the story, we learn a lot about these two women, and the history that both ties them together and separates them. I love most books show more set in Montana, and this one filled the bill, moving from the north central prairies, to the city of Kalispell just south of Glacier Park, then back to the prairies, with very real characters that all of us have known in our lives. Heartily recommended. show less