This Pen for Hire

I’ve read several short novellas featuring Jayne Austen in holiday collections and wanted to read her main mystery series for ages. I love Jayne’s snarky voice, her cat named Prozac, and her hilarious “detective” work. Jayne’s real-life job is writing—as in resumes, love letters, ghost writing. When she is hired to write a love letter for a client (who she feels has no chance at the girl he wants), she reluctantly takes the job. But when the object of the love letter turns up dead, and her client is arrested, Jayne feels obligated to seek out the real murderer. I loved the fun cast of characters in this one.

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.

Like her namesake, Jaine Austen is a writer, but a freelance writer, meaning she'll take just about any job that will help pay the bills. So when geeky nerd Howard Murdoch shows up at her door asking her to write a love letter for him she agrees although she doubts gorgeous aerobics instructor Stacy Lawrence will agree to go out with him. Much to Jaine's surprise, Stacy agrees to go out with Howard on Valentine's Day! Alas, Howard's triumph is short lived when he shows up for the date and finds Stacy's murdered body. Detective Timothy Rea is convinced Howard is the killer, but Jaine's not so sure and sets out to clear his name. She has plenty of suspects, including Stacy's neighbors, coworkers, and ex-boyfriend. She needs to find who show more the killer is before she becomes the next victim.

"This Pen for Hire" is an extremely funny cozy mystery. The humor starts with the name of the heroine, Jaine Austen (her mother was a bad speller), and continues from there with the fact that the modern Jane is a writer but no, well no Jane Austen. Some of the funniest bits in the book are the writing she does for various companies. Jaine is a good heroine - struggling not only to find writing jobs to pay her bills but struggling with her weight and a bit insecure because of that. Her friend Kandi, a writer on the cartoon show Beanie and the Cockroach, adds to the humor in the novel as she is always looking for "Mr. Right". Of the rest of the characters, I'd like to see more of Jaine's nosy neighbor Lance.

Because the book is on the slim side and heavy on the humor, I was afraid the mystery elements would be underdeveloped, but I was pleasantly surprised. The murder was well plotted, with a good motive, plenty of suspects and some nice red herrings along the way. The writing is nicely done as if Jaine were talking directly to the reader and very enjoyable.

"This Pen for Hire" is a laugh out loud funny cozy mystery. show less

Read in April, 2012

Read for Fun!
Overall Rating: 3.75
Story Rating: 3.50
Character Rating: 4.00

First Thought When Finished: What a fun read!

What I Loved: Note to self: don't write love letters for others unless you want to be in the middle of a very fun mystery. Jaine Austen was such a cute character. She was sassy, fun, and kind of a mess. Her dating life sucks. Her career is a little unusual. Her neighbor is nosy. Her best friend was a total riot. All in all she was just fun to watch stumble through things. She was a hot mess as she tried to figure out how to get a nerdy client that she wrote a love letter for out of jail. It was just downright fun!

What I Liked: The mystery was quirky and fun. Though it wasn't hard to figure out who was show more guilty. I find that is pretty much standard in cozy mysteries. It was fun to unravel the case through Jaine's eyes. There were a few twists and turns with the characters that I thought were really well done.

What made me go huh?: I wanted a little more of the detective in the story though I think we will see more of him in the future. I also wanted more of her best friend--she was a riot!

Final Thought: This is a perfect summer afternoon cozy mystery read! show less

As a free-lance writer, Jaine accepts a commission to write a letter for a young man, to a woman he doesn't know, asking her on a date. Much too her surprise, her letter works! Much to her dismay, he is soon arrested for the woman's murder.

For Jane Austen fans, don't get excited, because other than a couple of bad puns this book has nothing to do with the original Austen. It was a fun and quick read. A cozy mystery with a sassy female who decides she is better than the police at solving crimes, and heavens! She is! She is very inept and commits crimes which would put her in jail, not to mention have all the evidence thrown out, in the course of her investigation. This in not a story to read if you want a believable mystery story, it is show more one to read with a glass of wine in a hammock or something similar. I did get a bit tired of the sass though. show less

This is the first in the Jaine Austen mystery series of a self-image obsessed freelance writer who's been hired to write a letter of admiration to a stunning woman on behalf of a shy geek. The stunner accepts an offer for a date with the geek and is found dead in her apartment with her blood all over the clothes of the wimpy geek and off to jail he goes. Feeling partially responsible for placing these two together, Jaine tries to determine who the real killer is.
This is a good start for the series. Although, I'm not sure whether I would have continued reading the series had I started with the first. Levine's style, like a fine bordeaux, appears to improve with age.

Read for Fun!
Overall Rating: 3.75
Story Rating: 3.50
Character Rating: 4.00

First Thought When Finished: What a fun read!

What I Loved: Note to self: don't write love letters for others unless you want to be in the middle of a very fun mystery. Jaine Austen was such a cute character. She was sassy, fun, and kind of a mess. Her dating life sucks. Her career is a little unusual. Her neighbor is nosy. Her best friend was a total riot. All in all she was just fun to watch stumble through things. She was a hot mess as she tried to figure out how to get a nerdy client that she wrote a love letter for out of jail. It was just downright fun!

What I Liked: The mystery was quirky and fun. Though it wasn't hard to figure out who was guilty. I find that show more is pretty much standard in cozy mysteries. It was fun to unravel the case through Jaine's eyes. There were a few twists and turns with the characters that I thought were really well done.

What made me go huh?: I wanted a little more of the detective in the story though I think we will see more of him in the future. I also wanted more of her best friend--she was a riot!

Final Thought: This is a perfect summer afternoon cozy mystery read! show less

I reviewed this book on my blog:
The Real World According To Sam

I won this book from a giveaway. This was a quick read; I read it in a day or so.

At first I was doing a lot of eye rolling and eyebrow lifting because of how much Jaine was getting on my nerves, but eventually I settled in. I laughed at the beginning between the eye activity and throughout the rest of the book, so it wasn't all bad. By about halfway through, I was pretty invested and wanted to know how things were going to be resolved. I feel like if this one was put on television, it would've been way easier to figure out due to crucial visual elements, that are harder to translate and catch on paper. This one definitely works best as a book. Keeping the reader visually show more isolated to only their imagination increases the chance of missing some of the clues and being surprised at the end. I wasn't fully surprised, but I was definitely amused during the last half.

My main gripes are with Jaine and her general environment. Her way of talking at times and how she judges people really gets on my nerves. She feels very immature despite being sympathetic because of how pathetic she can be. She also lacks some of the ability to think ahead, which leads to comical situations, but which really is a major flaw. I don't mind having an amateur detective character, but I don't want the detective to necessary be bumbling and unable to consider consequences of choices and actions, or how to get out of potential hazards. Jaine isn't a great character, in my opinion. She's funny and sympathetic at times, but other times she borders on irritating and imbecilic. Jaine has a very guilty complex as she tells us things. Yes, she speaks directly to us in an almost aside like manner. She says that she won't do something, such as order a dessert that she doesn't need for her figure, then in an aside confesses that she did EXACTLY that. This happens numerous times, and while generally humorous, the more it happens, the more I can't help but wonder who she is telling this to, and why she feels the need to tell us all her instances of failed will power. Funny? Yes. Necessary? Not sure...unless her insecurity is something that the author wants to beat us over the head with. Which also happens a lot...the insecurity, I mean. Jaine is very insecure, especially after her failed marriage. She doesn't have much luck with her love life, and hasn't been very satisfied in other personally intimate areas. Jaine is also very open and shares a lot about things of that nature. We get to hear about her electronic companion (a specific tool girls are supposed to be fond of, please read between the lines) and her turn ons. There's plenty of adult content to be found here, although nothing too steamy action wise so it's all very minimal in use, despite being so prevalent in conversation and deliberation. She teaches a writing class to the elderly at a senior center and lets us know directly that she likes when her students provide details that are more exciting and risque in general, than hear about generally boring family life and actual life experience in the workplace. She gets bored with such topics very easily and is in a way neglectful of her students in that regard, bordering on disrespectful as she tunes them out.

Another gripe I have is the way that Howard is treated and portrayed. It is rather contradictory in some ways. Howard is portrayed as a pathetic geek type, who lives with his mom, has no romantic prospects, and isn't really rich. He has a boring job and not much going for him. The fact that he lives at home implies that he either really loves his mom, or is in some regards, a bum. Yet Stacy works at the gym he is part of, which we later learn costs thousands of dollars a month. Why is Howard at such an expensive gym or even working out to begin with if he's so pathetic? How does he afford it? I understand all the stereotypes and insinuations about his character, but things just don't quite line up all the way.

Generally speaking, for a light read, this book isn't bad. It is humorous at times and I did enjoy it once I got far enough in. I laughed here and again and was able to make it all the way through. However, I did have several gripes. I generally hope that because this is the start of a decently long series, the books, and Jaine, get better over time, but I'm not really sure how much of a need I feel to find out. If I was able to find the sequel as an ebook through the library or just at the library in general, I might read it, if I didn't have something more pressing to read or do. I'm not going to rush to locate and read the next one though. I don't feel like I'm a cynical person, but I also don't think this book was written with ME as the target audience by any means. In many ways I actually feel like its written at a lower intellect level, but for older people...which is messing with me a lot since I generally perceive folks older than me as needing something more serious or mature in some regards, but I suppose this isn't always the case. Sometimes everybody needs a little bit of fluff I guess. That's what this book is...cozy mystery fluff. I might read it again if there was a rainy day and I didn't have much else and just wanted a light laugh, but I'm definitely not going to recommend that anyone rush out to buy a copy for themselves or rush to buy any sequels of it myself.

Light fluffy fun (or as light as it can be considering there's murder involved) and nothing to write home about. show less