Assault and Batting

Taylor Quinn has been building a life for herself in Portland, Oregon--a good job she likes, a home, a boyfriend--and then her mother dies.

She's back in the small town of Comfort, suddenly responsible for her sixteen-year-old sister, Belle, their grandfather, and her mother's quilt shop, Flour Sax. Oh, and her boyfriend broke it off and found a new girlfriend almost immediately, when she said she was moving back to Comfort.

The official verdict is that her mother, Laura Quinn, tripped and fell, possibly due to one drink too many, on the dock near the B&B she and some old friends were staying in. Belle has a different theory. She thinks she accidentally triggered one of her mother's friends to push Laura into the water. She has a reason show more for this that is almost as much a shock to Taylor than just the theory that their mother was murdered.

What follows includes Belle being a typically difficult teenager with something more than the standard teenage reason, Taylor discovering just how much she had cut herself off from her family and thus lost all awareness of their challenges, Belle and Taylor attempting their own amateur murder investigation, the realization that Grandpa Ernie (Laura's father) has been having memory problems, and the discovery that Grandma Quinn doesn't regard Belle, whom Laura adopted after her son, Taylor's father, died, as her "real" granddaughter.

And that's barely scraping the surface.

Taylor has to learn how run, not just any fabric store, something she has professional experience doing, but Flour Sax Quilt Shop, a small but specialized shop that she really knows only as her mother's daughter, helping out after school. Both her mother's YouTube video program and the small town gossip speculating that Laura may have had a serious drinking problem are major surprises to her.

The characters here are complex and interesting, and some that don't seem likeable prove to have surprisingly solid characters when they're put to the test. It's not a perfect book, but it is interesting and enjoyable.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook. show less

I actually want to go with 3-1/2 stars. About 2 stars for the first 60 or so pages and 4 for the remaining part. The slow start owing to the introduction and building of many characters.
The premise is sound and well detailed. The characters are not one dimensional but complex and lean towards real rather than fictional fixed in a few minutes type of people. The story pace at the beginning was slow but as the plot moved along it quickened and the relationships became more substantial. The characters are dealing with many issues and so it took a little time to speed things up as it were. I look forward to reading the next book to see how the characters mature.

Delightful read and listen. I was hooked from the first. Have already restarted it - had too many interruptions and feel I've missed some things.

FROM CHIRP: Taylor Quinn is full of love and living it up in the city. But when her mother dies suspiciously and she rushes home to take over the family’s small-town quilt shop, her whole world unravels. Discovering her grieving young sister blames herself, she vows to prove everyone’s innocence.

In way over her head, Taylor’s investigation pulls a thread of quirky suspects, a tight knot of envy, and a patchwork of gossip. But as she weaves the evidence together, she unwittingly reels in the killer’s attention…

Can Taylor sew up the case before everything comes apart at the show more seams?

Assault and Batting is the first book in the delightful Taylor Quinn Quilt Shop cozy mystery series. If you like classic puzzles, poignant family relationships and heartwarming surprises, then you’ll love Tess Rothery’s humorous tale. show less

A real good book. Will be reading the whole seriess.