Reading this, I start to remember why I used to think McKinlay was one of the better cozy writers today. It's not up to early standards, but it's definitely better than some of her more recent efforts in the 4 series she's written.
I had my concerns at the beginning; the first chapter read like a UK to US language tutorial that stretched on too long. Furthermore – and really, this is why I didn't rate the book higher – if I had to read about Scarlet's stupid vow of one-year of celibacy one more time... First of all, the whole thing is immature; if Scarlet was the strong, intelligent, independent protagonist she's supposed to be, she'd know that an enforced time-limit isn't going to magically cure her poor taste in men. She'd know, if she were the protagonist we deserve, that self-awareness and self-reflection were far more likely to fix her love life and if done right, wouldn't necessarily take as long. If all she's doing is marking days off a calendar, Scarlett is really only likely to shag the first man to cross her path on day 366. Also, if Scarlett reminded us of this childish vow one more time I was going to chuck the book in the blue bin.
Now, having thoroughly slagged the book off, I'll get to the good stuff: great characters; really likeable, relatively three dimensional (Scarlett's immaturity aside) characters that are all friends - no frenemies or nemesis to be found. Great London setting that makes a reader want to chuck it all and open a hat shop in Notting Hill. Finally, one of the better plot lines McKinlay has come up with in a long time. Nothing over the top, nothing (too) outrageous and requiring a suspension of common sense or logic; nothing that qualifies as TSTL. Yes, there's a bit of editorial license with police procedure but hell, at least the police were involved and respected.
McKinlay ends this, or tries to, with a cliffhanger. It's not really a cliffhanger unless you're stuck in adolescence (I'd love to know why the author decided all her books, which were all very good without them, suddenly needed love triangles and cliffhangers). I have the latest book on my Pile and I'm probably just going to dive right in to it next and see what happens. Sadly it will be less because I'm curious, and more so I can check a series off my list as 'caught up with' but at least this book was good enough that I am curious.