I want to give this stars for being finished and sent into the world, but it appears this is not the first book this author has finished and published. I never would have finished reading past the first chapter, if I wasn't an Early Reviewer, and felt a responsibility. However, this is the first book I've read that felt like I was reading as a writer, or editor. I related to her write what you know, but even my first tries weren't about social media again and again. The narrator and her husband may have been set up in the previous books, but in this one had no chemistry at all. The relationships were empty other than the cousin for a moment of dialogue. And then the Perry Mason ending, of "I did it." It is a wonderful lesson for improvement in description, dialogue, setting, and plot. I appreciate it as a study.

Book TW/CW: Off-screen death

This is the third book in the series, it is not necessary to have read the other books to read this one, though doing so would provide you more insight to the relationships between the main characters.

Summary: Amateur sleuth, Hazel Rose, finds herself in the middle of yet another murder investigation, this time the murder of a man that she recently met at the signing of her most recent romance book. A sense of obligation to one of the main suspects propels Hazel forward to find out who the killer is, but will she and her faithful cadre of book club friends find them before they find her?

This is a cozy mystery and I found it quite enjoyable. The characters are extremely well written and the plot itself is quite good. The mystery kept me guessing until moments before the killer was revealed. My biggest complaint is that the story seemed to lag in the middle but did eventually pick up again in the last quarter of the book. My only other, more minor, complaint is that the author would occasionally jump from the present to the future saying things like "We had little to worry about on that score-but we didn't know that yet."

I will absolutely be reading future books in this series and will be going back to read the first two.

A copy of this book was provided to me for free in exchange for an honest review. This has not affected my review and rating. ( )

This started out quick, fast and entertaining. I like the author's writing style. The characters are all engaging and written with a lot of warmth and wit. But, the story really started to slow and drag half way through and I found myself losing interest and counting the pages to see how close I was to the end. A pity because up to that point, I found it to be rather quick and interesting. I also guessed who the murderer was and their motive at the half way point so what started out as so promising became a bit disappointing towards the end. This would've been better if 75 or so pages were shaved off.

Still, I'm glad to have read this. I did like the characters. ( )

The basic premise is that the protagonist is a struggling writer and is attending a writing class, to write a mystery, then ends up investigating a real death.

I struggled with the writing style as so much of it was conversation between the characters and could've been explained in a different way. There was also over description of some concepts such as what Linked In is, but other phrases such as 'Roman a clef' were used with no explanation given. This is a self-published book and would benefit from going through a formal editing process.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for providing an unbiased opinion. I have not read any other books by this author. ( )

An average mystery. Simple writing with a mediocre plot. The book didn’t engage me, and I had to really focus while reading the book. The one positive for me was the way the author portrayed the writing class. It was interesting learning different ways to cover certain aspects of book writing. That’s the main reason I gave it 3 stars instead of 2 stars.

My review is voluntary and all comments and opinions expressed are
my own. ( )