Calamity Jayne

Tressa Jayne Turner is accident prone. She also seems to manage to get herself into, shall we say, unusual situations. In this introductory story, Tressa manages to inadvertently "steal" a car without realizing it and then finds a dead body in the trunk when she goes to change a flat tire.

Since she finds the body and then loses it, she has to prove to everyone she knows that she hasn't lost her mind and so sets out to solve the murder that hasn't been recorded yet.
It was a fun story but I have a hard time with somebody being that dumb. Also the cover of the book has this straight haired blonde while through out the book Tressa complains about her unmanageable curly hair.

snarky, punfest, humor, amateur sleuth, women sleuths, murder

This book is just too much fun! Each character is quirky and well explored, the verbal and situational humor are hilarious, and the plot is well developed. The publisher's blurb is helpful, and no need for spoilers. No gratuitous erotica! Innuendos yes, but that's part of the fun! Well worth the price!

This was a fun book but doesn't live up to it's marketing label. It was supposed to be a contemporary romance but honestly other than some love/hate name calling banter and a couple of smooches there wasn't much romance. It was more of a mystery but a weak one at that. I think the saving grace was that there were a few characters I loved. I loved the "hero's" grandpa who informed Tressa (aka Calamity Jayne) that he was the Green Hornet and she was his Kato and just needed to drive. This was before he pulled out a gun that would impress Dirty Harry for their protection which ended up stolen and used to murder a murderer.
I didn't like Bacus's way of wrapping up the mystery either. She builds up a somewhat suspenseful scene where the show more killer realizes Tressa is on to him/her and Bacus tries to continue the suspense by saying things like The Killer stared at Tressa. The Killer smiled a cold evil grin. So not identifying the killer during the big stand off for a a bit which I thought was a bit over kill and didn't make the mystery better. However, like I said there were some great (well, at least interesting) characters so I gave this book a 4 star rating and will read the next one. Oh and the blonde jokes peppered through the book were fun too. show less

Stephanie Plum with cowgirl boots, hot pink cowgirl boots. Tressa Jayne Turner is a cowgirl in Iowa, she's not a ranch hand but she's had a string of career disasters and is now working at a Wallmartish store as a clerk and a Dairy Queenish restaurant as an order taker, before she gets involved in a murder or three. If you like the Stephanie Plum series you'll enjoy the humor in this series and this first book also has a decent mystery.

Calamity is an accident waiting to happen. You can identify with her insecurities that she tries to hide behind her ditzy blond/accident-prone facade. If you like zany but lovable characters and a mystery to solve you will enjoy this.

Tressa annoyed the shit out of me in this book. She’s tired of her dumb blonde reputation and we see a couple of times the impact of having everyone think she’s a twit has on her. But those moments are really only quick glimpses and it only happened twice in the book. What really annoyed me is that instead of dropping the dumb blonde routine and finding a direction in life she takes up an insane quest to find the killer of a local lawyer to prove herself. That would’ve been all fine and dandy considering that it is a mystery novel. But what bothered me was the fact that she didn’t really prove herself at all. She didn’t even solve the case in the end. Clues and dead people where just thrown at her and she tripped haphazardly show more over them and had to have Ranger Rick save her. Her clumsiness was another thing that really started to annoy me. It was taken to the extreme and so the entertainment of it wore off really quick. show less

Good mystery, loved the supporting characters. Was a bit impatient with the main character's waffling between wanting to be taken seriously and acting like a bimbo.