Proposals and Poison

by Diana Xarissa

[Mystereity Reviews]

"My dear girl, your life keeps my death interesting," Mona told her with a small laugh"

Read this one in an afternoon, and although it was good and I enjoyed it, I can't shake the feeling that this plot was similar to an earlier book but I'm too lazy to look through which one. And I don't really care, either.

Anyway, Daniel wants to move to within walking distance of Fenella Can't-Say-The-L-Word Woods (after 16 books, I really can't explain why and frankly, Fenella hasn't ever explained why. I think Mona came pretty close, though.) But that's not the point of this book, the point is Daniel's house hunt (OMG at the beginning of the book I was envisioning a House Hunters International with Daniel as a basket weaver and Fenella as a rainbow sponge knitter and their budget was $100 million. Which Fenny could afford, I guess) yanks attention span back to the book anyway Daniel and Fenella go to look at a few places, with one standing out as perfect but it's over Daniel's budget and he's not comfortable accepting money from/or even borrowing money from Fenella, even though he'd be steps away from her door. While touring the building that the perfect apartment is in, they run into Constable Corlett, who says he's headed to the old hotel next door in response to a call for service. Daniel goes with him to check out the problem, and returns with news that a box labelled POISON was found buried in a crawl space that the new owners were enlarging. Later that day brings word that a skeleton has been found behind the box, and a search through old missing persons records begins. Fenella uses her gift for mining for information and helps Daniel solve the case.

And I did enjoy this, as I always do. It's a quick and light read with cute characters and a beautiful setting. The plot was interesting and I enjoyed watching them wade through the potential victims and the twist with one of the (in actuality not) missing persons made for a nice change of pace. And, now 16 books into this series, I'm definitely so invested in the characters that I enjoy watching their stories progress like they did in this one.

Another enjoyable read and a perfect story to lose myself in for an afternoon but I have to say, I'm dreading seeing this series come to a close (as some of the author's other series have recently done) but I'll be along for the ride as long as there's new stories.