Gemma Halliday

There's not actually anything bad about this book - I just didn't really like it all that much. It was readable and it had a few funny parts - it's just not really my thing. I prefer less ditz in my cozy mysteries. Well all my books really. If you like Stephanie Plum, you'll no doubt love Maddie Springer. She's pretty much a complete carbon copy but without a second boyfriend (well sort of anyway) and a million family members. That or she's a re-imagined version of what a LA fashionista Stephanie Plum would look like.

I got tired of Stephanie Plum with her back and forth wishy-washy-ness and the exact same thing happened here. Because it was 481 pages of ditzy flip-flopping idiocy. It was too long by far. Sure the first 40% was decent but it just never wrapped up - it just kept going and going. And to be fair, it wasn't badly written - it was perfectly readable - if I liked the main character more I'm sure I would've loved getting an extra 250 pages than what was needed - but I didn't and it started to drag.

One of the main things that dragged was the is she/is she not pregnant. I just didn't care by the end. Her relationship with Ramirez is problematic for so many reasons - mostly the fact that she MAY BE PREGNANT?! But also because she's not even committing to dumping Richard? Or thinking she should? It was just bizarre. The will they won't they has never grabbed me and it just made me cringe in this.

Overall, not for me. But a good beach read if you're after a bit of mystery, a bit of romance and a bit of ditz. 2.5 stars.
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I started this book ages ago and just couldn't get into it, but picked it up again this week and flew through it. It's not the best mystery book out there but it's not really the worst either. I didn't really like any of the characters, Hartley is more or less an idiot. But the mystery was okay, there were some good one liners and it wasn't painful to get through, just ridiculous. If you like Gemma Halliday's Spying in High Heels you'll like this. It's pretty much the same characters, just younger.… (more)

This was a fun cozy mystery, basically was exactly what I expected. I think these types of mysteries can be really fun to read and usually are nice and easy reads and that's what I got here. I do generally prefer for my cozy mysteries to be a bit humorous so I would have preferred a bit more comedy in this.

I feel like throughout this story I got a pretty good sense of Emmy's personality and what her background was which I appreciated. There is also a cop/love interest that I wish we had seen more of because I felt like I didn't know him at all. Emmy's friend Ava was fun and present a lot through the story but we definitely don't know as much about her.

This plot is very similar to other books in this genre that I've read. It seems like a lot of these books have a food element and this one did as well, as Emmy is a trained chef. It definitely made me very hungry reading this and through sometimes long descriptions of food bother me, it was fun here.

I would recommend this if you're looking for a fun amateur sleuth cozy mystery.… (more)