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Saturday, December 29, 2012

170) Wicked Weaves by Joyce & Jim Lavene

The Blurb :

Assistant professor Jessie Morton spends her summers at the Renaissance Village honing her skills and finding the lady, lord, or serf whodunnit.

This summer Jessie is the apprentice to Mary Shift, a basket-maker with a dark past as well as incredible weaving skills. One day a man is bid a deadly fare-thee-well with Mary?s signature weave around his neck. It?s up to Jessie to spring Mary from the stocks of the Myrtle Beach police station. Yet innocence is hard to prove in a place where there?s a fine line between reality and good theater?and history is bound to repeat itself.

My Thoughts :

The weekend before Christmas I was taking part in another Read-a-thon. They are great events to help get you reading and I also try and use them to read paperbacks instead of just Kindle books. This Renaissance Faire mystery has been on my shelf for a while and I decided to give it a go. The authors are not new to me so I knew what to expect but I have to say that the cozy concept didn't seem like something I would like. I was still willing to give it a try though.

The Renaissance Faire is a tourist attraction and every Summer Jessie spends her days there helping out and learning skills that were used back in the good old days. This seemed like a realistic ruse for a series and was totally different to what I expected. I was actually surprised that this was the route the authors had taken. Within a few chapters I was actually very interested.

Plot wise the book was a little weak. I didn't find the dead body in an alley very thrilling. Especially when it turned out to be someone nobody really knew. For the first in the series the murder mystery was too far away from home and I expected something a little closer. However it did give the writers a chance to explore the Faire and show the reader about.

Jessie was a nice character but I am still not sure how old she is supposed to be. Her love interest was quite a highlight and I am curious to see what comes of it while her twin brother was a total flake and I didn't see any reason for him to be in the story at all. Mary, the accused, was extremely weird. I found her quite frustrating. Luckily I think she has done her part for this series and may not be seen very much in the following books.

All in all a nice cozy. Not as good as the Missing Pieces Mysteries I have read by the couple but still a series I will check in on. The Renaissance Faire is a strange angle for a cozy but it worked. I may not be a hundred percent convinced but I can see myself reading a few more in the series to see what happens.

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2 comments:

shaunesay said...

I really just didn't care for this one, I think because I've worked at a Renaissance Festival and it just didn't seem at all realistic to me many of the things that went on. I feel bad saying that, but it's not a series I'll be continuing. :/

Aurian said...

Thanks to your reviews, I have had this author on my wishlist for a while now. And I do love renaissance fairs a lot, so looking forward to this series as well.