This used to be one of my favorite cozy series: the MC is a reporter for a D.C. newspaper, stuck on the fashion beat, which means her stories are interesting and she has a legitimate reason to investigate and ask people questions; there's never a love triangle and Lacey's fashion beat focuses on vintage fashions and each story offers up interesting historical information about whatever fashion is at the heart of a book's plot.
This last book, though, was self-published and while the completist in me bought it to finish my collection, it sat on my TBR for ages because I was nervous about what would happen without benefit of the series editor.
I needn't have worried; the author did run a bit long in areas that would have benefitted from a bit of tightening up (her Fashion Bites for example) and at least once it was obvious she was using Lacey as a personal mouthpiece, but overall, Lacey and her quirky friends were all the same, and the writing was good, the mystery well-plotted, and the copy well-edited.
The last scene was over-the-top, but the final column, written by one of Lacey's co-workers, was sublimely wry and funny; it made up for the melodrama and capped the book off perfectly.
There were things left undone in this book, leaving it open to an 11th, but not so much that I'm left wanting for more. Of course if an 11th shows up, I'll buy it.