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by Ellen Byerrum I enjoyed this as a fun, light cozy read that also offered a nostalgic visit to a city and neighborhood where I once lived, but wanted to like it better than I did. It's a tough balancing act to keep the right level of the connection between books that is part of what people look for in a series. I expect some teetering, but this book went way overboard with continual harping on events and interactions from prior books. The result left me as a reader with some of the same increasingly annoyed, uncomfortable feeling you get as the only stranger at a party where conversations are full of references to shared experiences old and new. I'm also tired of a too common cozy mystery motif that pops up here: the sophisticated, capable woman who can handle anything except her own family's insistence on interfering in her life. Sometimes you want to scream "Just say NO!" Lacey Smithsonian is a former crime reporter transferred against her will to the fashion column on a Washington DC paper. One of the best parts of the book is reading her columns, full of humor and good advice. The switchover doesn't keep her away from crime though, so when reality TV makeover success turned supermodel Amanda Manville is looking for help against a stalker, she turns to Lacey. Amanda's prima donna act is so over the top that Lacey doesn't really believe she's in danger and besides, she has enough problems with her am-I-really-related-to-these-people family arriving in response to her car being stolen, just in time to interfere with a romantic getaway with the man of her dreams. Whose buxom ex has also just hit town. But when Lacey is there to see Amanda get killed, she just has to investigate despite the best efforts of her boss, the DC police, and of course her family. The result is a fun read with a lot of quirky characters and non-stop action that I just think could have been a lot more fun to read. Reviews of other titles in this series Hostile
Makeover, No 3 |
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Makeover