Happy Spring, everybody!

flowers at The Mount (Lenox, MA), taken by mr. strivingcynic..love the color!

Friday it was above 70 degrees here…a little spring preview to give us hope.

Book review time!  So...The Chocolate Bridal Bash by Joanna Carl.

Source

What I’ve already said: I bought this at a friends of the library book sale…the title looked fun. It’s a mystery, sixth in a series  of which I haven’t read the earlier ones. And my prior “meh” assessment….it still stands.

Brief plot summary: Lee McKinney, who is preparing for her wedding learns that her mother was a runaway bride more than 30 years before (Lee lives in her mother’s hometown, but her mother never returned)….after her mom bolted, the groom-to-be turned up dead (a suicide). Lee wants to know more about what happened.

So, one of my reasons for not liking this book (and from what I saw of the reviews on Amazon which I looked at after finishing, other people felt the same) , is that Lee “malaprops” when she gets nervous. I found this annoying by the third malapropism…and there are a lot more than three. The problem is that these slips aren’t amusing, they’re just kind of there. For example…(from p. 156 and 157) “Missile, my left foot…I mean mix up! It was no mix-up. It was a delicate kidney attester. I mean a deliberate kidnapping attempt,” …and…”‘I know my mom had a narrow estate. I mean escape.”  Not very amusing. It really did nothing for me as a reader aside from make me grimace.

The other reason I didn’t like this was that despite the malapropisms, I actually thought the mystery was interesting. But to me, its resolution told you the bare bones of what happened and who did it…but I wanted to know more about exactly what happened, and why (yes, I want that level of “hand-holding”….). After following the story for more than 200 pages, I didn’t find the end very satisfying. I was sorry for that in a way because I really wanted to like this book and felt that it had elements that could have made it better for me…but it just didn’t come together.

So, I don’t recommend The Chocolate Bridal Bash…and I don’t think I’ll be looking for the rest of the mysteries.

Next book up, another library sale book Bitter Is the New Black by Jen Lancaster. I’ve never read any of her books, but I always love the titles..and I’ve only been to her blog once or twice.

And on that note, here are some more “Happy Spring” flowers…

What book have you read lately that you *wouldn’t* recommend? What didn’t you like about it? Feel free to recommend books, too.