Laura Levine

My friend has been trying to get me to read Laura Lavene’s book for months now. But something always came up in my TBR before I could get to one. Well, now I have read one, this book, and I am a fan! I have a lot of catching up to do!

I fell in love with author Lavene’s writing style during the prologue of death by tiara. First off, she is hysterical! I knew if the mystery in this story was half as well written as the comedy, it would be a fantastic read…and it was!

I spent hours show more immersed in mystery, a teen beauty pageant, and laughing until I cried. I’m so happy I wasn’t drinking my soda when I read protagonist, Jaine, make a plug for book 14 of this series, KILLING CUPID, or I would have done a spit take that would have done any sitcom actor proud. As for the mystery, is was well plotted and had me second guessing myself. To me, the ending of this book was truly unexpected. I just didn’t see the answer to this whodunit coming.

I could find no fault in this book whatsoever. All I found was gifted writing that flowed across the pages so fluidly, I never wanted the story to end.

DEATH BY TIARA may have been my first book in the Jaine Austen Mystery series, but it will not be my last! show less

Jaine thinks she got a cushy job co-writing an exercise book. Chip is the “Iron Man” with a chain of gyms. What starts out as a deluxe train ride with Chip, Chip’s family, and his employees ends with Chip’s dead body. Jaine finds the body, of course. Now she much find out who hated Chip enough to kill him. Practically everyone who knew him. And Jaine really doesn’t know who to trust. Yikes! It’s a good thing she has Prozac, her cat, to keep her calm. This delightfully funny show more mystery is highly entertaining. It’s sprinkled with humor throughout, but the funniest bits come from the texts from Jaine’s parents. There is a big surprise at the end, and it leaves me wondering what’s in store for Jaine. Well written and pure fun, this series is highly recommended. show less

I'd read the first few books in this series years ago, when they were first published, but the series fell off my radar. A lot of my cozy book friends have been talking about how much they love Jaine Austen and her cat, Prozac and I've been meaning to pick up another of the books and get reacquainted.

Jaine is a freelance copy writer and is hired on to write profiles for an on-line dating service. The owner Joy, is less than scrupulous and ends up dead at a dating mixer. Jaine is considered show more one of the suspects so she goes about asking questions and trying to clear her name. Hilarious adventures follow.

While this is a very well-written book, with a solid mystery plot and laugh out loud humour, it didn't actually do it for me. When I read books I like to lose myself in the story, become attached to the characters; I like to feel like I'm a fly on the wall in this little world the author has created. Killing Cupid was absolutely entertaining, but it just wasn't my type of story.

Jaine is likeable, witty, and loaded with self-depracating humour. Her voice is the inner voice of smart-alecks everywhere. After 12 books she's still sworn off relationships, and none of the books I've read in the series include any romance for Jaine. Lance is her so-self-absorbed-it's-almost-endearing neighbour. He's constantly looking for love and always ready to jump into the next relationship.

But the star of the show is Prozac, Jaine's cat. He's got all the best lines in this book. The author plays up his Machiavellian antics and commentary (not real commentary, just what Jaine imagines him saying) for maximum laughs and succeeds.

Finally, while you never meet them, and they don't play any part in the mystery itself, Jaine's parents are main characters throughout the book, via he-said/she-said emails from their retirement community. Pure slapstick comedy, and probably the parts of the book I found the funniest.

The murder plot was nicely done. The murderer was never obvious and the suspects each had legitimate motives. Jaine only had one really TSTL moment that comes to mind, so not too bad for an amateur sleuth. I didn't figure out the murderer until Jaine did, and enjoyed being surprised by the end.

I'm a big believer in reading a series in order, from the beginning, but I was able to pick up this 12th book after years away from the series and jump right in, so I think it works just fine as a stand-alone for those that just want to give the series a try.

I'd recommend this book and series to any reader who is looking for very light-hearted, often slapstick humour with a well-plotted mystery. If you're looking to become invested in a series, this probably isn't the one to try, but if you're looking to be entertained by likeable characters, you're in for some laughs.

(I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.) show less

A boring, lackluster mystery full of stupid characters, even dumber scenarios, and a lot of desperately unfunny attempts at humor.

Jaine Austen’s Christmas plans are turned upside down when her ‘best friend’ Lance announces he has accepted a job for the two of them to housesit a ritzy Bel Air mansion for two weeks over the upcoming holidays. When they arrive, they meet the weird next door neighbors—Missy and Scotty. Scotty is a loathsome former child star whose abrasive personality show more and niggardly ways have made an enemy of everyone in the neighborhood, including his own wives—both current and former. When Jaine discovers Scotty dead, clobbered over the head with a day-old Yule log, she becomes a prime suspect and clumsily sets out to clear her own name.

It is risible to even refer to Jaine Austen as an amateur sleuth because she is such a clueless moron. As Jaine bumbles through the sloppy plotline, she labels all of the characters as ‘the killer’ at some point or another; she is convinced that Every. Single. One. of them just has to be the murderer. Of course, it is the one and only character Jaine pays zero attention to who turns out to be the real culprit. Duh. It really comes as no surprise since everything Jaine does is so idiotic.

Even something as prosaic as Jaine’s eating habits unmask her as a colossal nitwit. The author wastes countless pages expounding on Jaine’s hatred of kale and tofu. (Jaine has an aversion to health food that borders on the psychotic.) At some point, she goes to a (gasp!) vegetarian restaurant (oh, the horror!) & orders an avocado & mozzarella sandwich, which Jaine proclaims is all right except for all of the godawful sprouts that got crammed into it. It never seems to occur to Jaine’s pea-sized brain to ask the restaurant to leave the sprouts off (restaurants will do little things like that, you know), or to even take them off herself after the fact; given Jaine’s limited capabilities, she probably would have needed a diagram and instruction book to accomplish even that minor feat. (I guess one can’t really expect too much from a person with such numskull parents they can’t even spell the name Jane properly.) Seriously, this woman needs to be in a home for incompetents.

Jaine’s inability to ever stand up for herself renders her even more pathetic and unlikeable. Whether it’s her endless (and I do mean ENDLESS) stream of hellish blind dates, or her constant inability to reclaim her own cat, or her refusal to tell Lance to go to hell every time he refers to how ugly she is, Jaine never has any brains, any backbone, or any semblance of self-worth. She is quite literally one of the most dimwitted and useless cozy mystery heroines I have ever encountered, and that is saying quite a lot.

The only character who is even more odious than Jaine is her gay, self-centered, verbally abusive, drama-queen best friend Lance. Lance’s two favorite words are fab & hon, and he uses them with stomach-churning frequency. Lance is a cruel, manipulative liar who is constantly putting Jaine down and reminding her how fat and unattractive she is while simultaneously forcing her into doing things she doesn’t want to do. Lance does things like accepting a Christmas job for Jaine without asking her first, and creating a horrific online dating profile for her behind her back. Isn’t he a peach? Lance is no one’s idea of a decent human being, yet Jaine puts up with all of his crap because he buys her expensive presents. (!?!?!?) And the author treats this behavior as comedic gold that will have readers rolling in the aisles with laughter. Offensively nauseating doesn’t even begin to describe it.

And amongst all of this horrifying drivel, we are subjected to thoroughly irrelevant emails from Jaine’s parents about the Caribbean cruise they are taking with their cult-like HOA. I have no clue what the point of that was, except to say that it was utterly pointless nonsense.

Run, don’t walk, away from this horrible series! show less