Terri Thayer

After the bitter breakup of her marriage which left her penniless and her professional reputation in shatters, April Buchert reluctantly moves back home to Aldenville, Pennsylvania to work with her father. April is desperate for money and to get her life back together, but Aldenville has painful memories for her. She tries to bury those memories, but some come rushing back when, while helping her father on a job, a human skull is found. All signs point to murder and April's father quickly show more becomes the main suspect. Now April is not only fighting to rebuild her reputation but to clear her father's name as well as her growing attraction to Mitch Winchester.

"Stamped Out" is the first book in the new Stamping Sisters mystery series and it is a pretty good beginning. Author Terri Thayer populates the book with some of the most interesting and complicated character I've seen in a mystery, including April herself; her parents Bonnie and Ed who are also divorced for a reason that bothered April for years; Ed's partner Vince; her best friend Deanna; the Stamping Sisters, and more. Thayer does an excellent job of portraying what life in a small town is like, where everyone seems to know your secrets yet somehow dark secrets remain hidden, where it is impossible to escape your past, and friends are fiercely loyal. April is a richly developed character as she struggles with the breakup of her marriage, living close to her parents, creating a new life, and dealing with past events that still haunt her. Most of the characters are realistic although some, like Barbara Harcourt, are a bit of a stereotype and over the top. The mystery itself is intricately plotted, although I did figure out who the killer was. If I have any complaints about the book it is that April is a little too trusting of her father's workers (surprising since her husband was less than trustworthy) and she never asks questions when she should, instead standing by passively. Hopefully her character will develop a bit more in future books. Also, the stamping aspects of the book could've been explained better.

"Stamped Out" is a nice start to what looks like a promising mystery series. show less

I think this books ends nicely, but VERY surprisingly. I was pleased with the ending, which I didn't see coming at all. I am glad that Terri doesn't torment her readers with bad situations and that Dewey was able to learn some lessons in order to move forward. I think that haranguing readers with problems of the characters who can never learn their lessons drives readers away. Terri does some things in this book, like fire Kym, which was totally necessary to move the story along. Getting show more Dewey and her brother back together was great as well. I was confused during the first couple of chapters. Concerned that I blew through them too fast, I am reading them again. I can see that this series will go on. Such series always make me want a compendium with bios of the characters, more background information. show less

A decent mystery that doesn't involve a current body - rather, it involves a discovered skull that's years old, and the book waits to discover this until after page 45. The story is focused heavily on the protagonist's life and struggles, as well as the small town residents. It's entangled especially with her father, who left them when she was younger because he was gay, and his struggling business. There's also the side-story involving her mother, a woman who never quite let go of the past. show more The nursing home story was a little confusing and seemed to be thrown in either as a wrench to the reader guessing what's going on, or else the author was originally going to do something else with that storyline and then changed her mind.

The ending offers a convenient wrap-up, with the murderer but also with a personal problem involving a job renovation. As far as mysteries go, it's semi-decent but it's hard to feel invested. I couldn't care about the victim since I never met them, they weren't introduced until much later in the story, and the motives were all old ones that didn't become clear till the end. Hard to care much about it, other than the worrying about the protagonist's father being unreasonably indicated. Still, it's clear he would never have charges stick long since there was no evidence at all, only suspicion from a paranoid cop.

While the mystery part wasn't strong, it was intriguing how the author put so much controversy in the personal lives of the characters. As a series, this would hold promise for future installments. The writing style is well-done and focused, characterization realistic enough, but there's not much warmth here other than some brief insights into April's life. The set-up with the love interest is rather obvious from the start, and I didn't care much about what happened with it.

The townsfolk are okay - the parents are not typical, so that's a refreshing change. It was funny how everyone kept treating her differently since she had previously been living in San Francisco. She even compared it to being compared to a Martian. I also liked the author's ballsy move to throw in the husband woes - she left a bad marriage with a gambler, not something touched upon enough for this kind of story. They usually get something more direct and clean, here it was realistic without being melodramatic or wishy-washy.

Nothing original really - and stamping isn't my idea of fun for a cozy theme - but it was not a bad book. The sequels will probably be better now that the introductions are out of the way. show less

This book has a deeper story that is hidden behind the "fluffy quilt lady" preconceived notion. The main character, Dewey, has a lot going on and a lot to deal with. Not all of the issues are clear or straightforward at the beginning. As the story progresses, it is obvious that she is suffering from a tragic event in her recent past that her family is not discussing as well a her layoff from her high tech Silicon Valley job. I think that the underlying story of Dewey and her life are the show more real interesting part of the book, though the murders bring on an interesting twist. Murder is not, usually, associated with quilts, quilt shows and quilt ladies and this book shows that quilts are an industry and industries are not wholly comprised of nice people who just want to help each other. show less