This is the second book in the By the Sea series. In this outing, Liz Holt has moved to the Florida island where she grew up to regroup and try to finish the novel she’s working on. Life gets in the way of her intentions, especially when a body of one of the locals is lost at sea from one of the fishing boats. Liz finds the body, and notes, with dismay, the large gash in the back of his head. She has many other things to worry about more than investigating a possible murder, like the upcoming Pirates’ Weekend at the family hotel, a chef who has dementia, a new boyfriend, a great-aunt who has great plans for the Pirates’ Weekend, whether her father’s new girlfriend, the detective investigating whether foul play was afoot in the death of man Liz found on the beach, will give her information on the investigation, and weather the tropical depression headed their way will slow down or turn elsewhere or turn into a hurricane and ruin their weekend plans.

The opening scenes of this book will grip any reader and have her quickly turning pages. But for some reason, the author slows down the action to a snail’s pace to describe, in several cases multiple times, the history of the hotel, interactions between residents, etc.

I’d like to say this book can be read as a stand-alone, but without having read the first book, and the author not giving enough information (even when she goes off on tangents) about the characters to not leave newbies in the lurch. For instance, she spends time talking about a scar on Liz’s face, but doesn’t say how or why it got there, leaving the reader wondering if some significant event occurred in the first book that would explain the scar and why it remains significant enough in the second book for multiple reference to it. ( )

Liz Holt has returned to Melbourne, Florida after a disastrous breakup and is now living happily in the home of her childhood, the Indialantic by the Sea hotel with her father and great-aunt Amelia. She's also at the beginning of a new relationship with ex-firefighter and arson investigator Ryan Stone, who's moved here to help his grandfather run the deli at the hotel's emporium.

When everything at last seems to be going swimmingly for Liz, she sees a body on the beach and discovers it's the nephew of another emporium tenant, Minna, also a friend of Liz's. It's more tragic when it's discovered that Dylan was murdered, not merely fallen overboard the ship he was on, which is what everyone thought. But who would want to kill the young man who was also a budding photographer? While there is no dearth of suspects, it's not going to be easy to figure it out. Yet that's what Liz and Ryan have decided to do, even if they have to do it on the down low, since the lead detective also happens to be Liz's father's girlfriend, and has warned them away.

But when Minna's house is set on fire and Dylan's belongings have been rifled through, Liz is sure there's more to the story and wants to find out the real reason Dylan was killed, and if the killer didn't find what they were looking for, maybe she and Ryan can find it first...

I have to say that I really struggled with this book. I've said many times before that I'm a great believer in details, and there were several inconsistencies and things that didn't make any sense, which are in spoilers below:

You can find the spoilers here: https://joannesbooks.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-killing-by-sea-by-sea-mysteryv2.html

This is the second book in the series but I felt that it was mainly centered on 1) Aunt Amelia's exploits; 2) Romance; 3) The mystery; when the mystery should have been #1 and Aunt Amelia should have been #3. We learn a lot about Amelia's TV shows, and almost everyone has a romantic interest; but Liz never gets close to danger and there's no nail-biting moments at all; it's more romance than mystery, and more Aunt Amelia than romance.

The worst thing is we're still not told the entire story of what happened to Liz to cause the scar on her face (although we're getting closer to finding out) and then it’s added in that we don't know what is going on with Susannah - why she's there and too broke to pay her way. (She's also pretty arrogant in telling Liz she needs to put her phone on vibrate. What business is it of hers?). So now there are two things that should be explained and haven’t been done so: what happened to Liz, and why is Susannah living at the hotel?

At the end, I struggled with the mystery, mainly because it was broken up so much by everything else going on that it seemed almost an afterthought; this wasn’t really a mystery at all, even if there was a murder; it was a book about Aunt Amelia and her career and exploits, with a “murder lite” thrown in. I really didn't care about the victim because not a lot was said about him, and I didn't see why Liz was even investigating because Charlotte isn't an inept detective and the police were doing their job. It just seemed 'off' to me.

I give three stars for the writing which was very good, but as you can read, I had a difficult time with this book, and I'm sorry for that. The reasons why are written above, and again, I am really sorry that I just couldn't get into the book. I'm a big believer in paying attention to details, and there was just so much missing for me. ( )