Not your typical cozy mystery. I found it a little difficult to follow the threads of the story and felt it needed a more solid ending . I felt a little adrift at the end. ( )

Oh gee! I have been looking forward to reading this book that I won in a contest for so long. The author even sent me a beautifully mounted photo of St. John's island.

I am disappointed because I got lost in this book, it wasn't very clear! The plot was difficult to follow. The main character was lazy and drank all the time. She had been an estate attorney and was not successful. Pen had clients suing for malpractice but she wound up at a resort in St. John's as a manager but she did not do any work! she had her assistant do everything. I did like her affection for the iguana and the black rooster Tom. There was a lot of history and the legend of the Amina Slave Princess mixed it. But I would have loved a more direct telling of the story. I read the whole book but felt adrift most of the time. ( )

Adrift on St. John by Rebecca M. Hale is the first in the Mystery in the Islands series. Pen Hoffstra is the manager of a tropical resort on St. John island. She knows first hand that nothing is ever what it seems, even when a water taxi sinks and a young woman goes missing.

I know it sounds like the start of a typical cozy mystery but it isn't. Sure, there's a female protagonist who isn't a detective but will soon find herself in the middle of a mystery. Sure, there's a memorable setting — St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Sure there's a mystery — a missing (presumed drowned) young woman. But when put together the pieces add up to something different and more satisfying.

The current day mystery is tied up in three pieces of the island's past. First, there is the death of the Amina slave princess and the legend that has grown up around her. Then there is Pen's own sketchy history. And finally there is a hotel land development project in the works that has divided the island residents.

Now I know about a hill of beans about the U.S. Virgin islands so I can't tell you how well the asides about the island's history jives with reality but the asides were nonetheless interesting. As with How to Wash a Cat, there's a lot of emphasis on the basic history of the island and a set up of characters. But at the edges of the story, there's a hint of the magical realism that plays a greater role in later books in the Cats and Curios series. There are some scenes with the Amina princess that are more than just a person in disguise playing a role. It wouldn't surprise me to see more magical realism creep into later books.

I didn't figure out how all the pieces fit together but I often don't when I'm reading Hale's books. I don't care. They're fun and interesting and delightfully different. ( )

First Line: Deep within the murky, unlit darkness of the Caribbean waters skirting the northern tip of the Lesser Antilles, the stocky shadow of a catamaran powerboat rocked against a wooden pier off the tiny island of St. John.

For the past four years Penelope Hoffstra has been a resort manager on the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Penelope knows firsthand that there's no such thing as a tropical paradise, so when one of the resort's employees is reported to be killed when a water taxi sinks off the coast, she's not surprised that all is not what it appears to be.

If you begin reading this book expecting it to be a run-of-the-mill cozy mystery, you're going to become confused rather quickly. Rebecca M. Hale has written something different, and if you're willing to go with the flow, chances are you're going to appreciate it just as much as I did.

The main character is one Penelope "Pen" Hoffstra, resident manager of a resort on St. John. From almost the very beginning, we learn that she's not what she appears to be. She leaves most of the work to her assistant Vivian to take care of while Pen drinks more than she should and spends her days either hanging out at the table back by the dumpster outside the Crunchy Carrot where Richard the rooster forages for French fries, or sitting on her balcony chatting with Fred the iguana. Actually Richard and Fred were two of my favorite characters in the book. For one thing neither of them pretended to be something they weren't.

Yes, there are plenty of people pretending to be someone else, and we hear from several of them because Pen isn't the only narrator in the book. Hale also includes bits of the history of the island throughout the book, including information about eighteenth-century slave rebellion, which is woven into the plot.

None of the characters are particularly likable in this book, but that didn't bother me much. Why? Because Hale had me wondering what in the world they were all up to, and I had to keep reading to find out the answers to all my questions. The only thing that did bother me a bit was that, in the second half of the book, the narrator changed back and forth so quickly that it sometimes took me a paragraph or two to get my bearings once more.

Off balance or not, I really enjoyed this foray into the unexpected, and I look forward to reading the next book in this series. ( )

I was so looking forward to loving this book since it takes place in my childhood backyard, St. John. One of the most beautiful places on earth has to be a great setting for a mystery but I was too distracted by the glaring errors throughout the book. And not just geographical errors. Do the author and the editor both not know that ice does not expand when it melts but the opposite?

The plot was confusing, the characters' motives were unknown, and about the only positive thing I found about this book was the island setting. I am totally willing to accept literary license when it comes to stretching the actual locations but it became too distracting and annoying. For example, stating that the Greater Antilles were east of the Virgin Islands (shades of Krakatoa, East of Java!). I am so disappointed. ( )