annieb123
Written on Apr 25, 2019
Murder Between the Pages is a new series starter by Linda Hope Lee. Released 19th Dec 2018 by Wild Rose Press, it's 190 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.
This one should've checked all the boxes for me. I love cozies, bonus points for librarians and book-centric plots. I love the Pacific northwest area. It was definitely readable and it's a short easy read which moves along at a pretty good clip, however....
The dialogue is often awkward and stilted. The names are intrusively weird and very old fashioned (Wildeen, Zelda, Morry, Arlette, Hamlet, etc). . The main character is a librarian and although she's in her mid-thirties comes across as very schoolmarm-ish. If the author hadn't specified, I'd have thought her much closer to senior citizen age than 30's.
For readers who enjoy squeaky clean cozies with nothing racier in the romance subplot than a handful of very chaste kisses, this could definitely fit the bill. There's nothing here which would scandalize a nun (apart from the murder of course).
The denouement felt somewhat tacked on, and the murderer's motivation lacked believability to me. It often takes a few books before new series hit their strides, so I will likely pick up the followup book before making a decision to continue or quit.
Three stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.