Miranda Brickett

I enjoyed the opening of the series as it’s easy to like Claudia Porter, a former high school teacher who has resigned her teaching position after a relationship that seemed perfect changed to "heartbreak, humiliation and the destruction of her reputation."

Madeline, a married twin sister with 2 children is a successful attorney and is only interested in the sale of the inherited farmhouse from their great-aunt. But for the foreseeable future Claudia has decided to pursue fixing up the farmhouse before she makes any final decisions about her future. But the future may be decided as she becomes a murder suspect by local law enforcement being the new stranger in town that discovered a body near her inherited property. Friendship and healing from the past are key elements throughout the cozy.

There is a disconnect between Chapter 3 and 4 and with a total zilch until Chapter 13…
Chapter 3---
After encountering a cat at her inherited property, Claudia takes the cat into town with her for some shopping and purchases food for the cat. She gives the cat a sampling outside the grocery store. While still in town…

"I’m still wondering if you belong to someone," Claudia told the cat. "I’d hate for a neighbor to think I stole their cat! I’m going to take you back out to the farmyard right away."

Chapter 4---Claudia is back at the farm and there is no mention of the cat. In fact, there is no mention of the cat at all until Chapter 13 when she suddenly hears a little ...

"Meow?" She glanced down to see the black and white cat at her feet. "Hi!" she exclaimed, scooping the friendly critter up. "I was wondering where you went!"

One of the 2 animals featured on the cover is a cat and Claudia eagerly purchased 3 different flavors of dry cat food for the cat on her 1st shopping trip in town. It seemed unusual that there was no mention of the cat for 10 chapters not even to say that she’d leave food on the porch in the interim of learning the cat had returned home (as this information would come to light in a small town) or was a feral cat that had decided to adopt Claudia. The reader can infer food wasn’t left on the porch as …

She looked down at the furry feline. "Are you hungry? I still have some of that dry cat food I bought you. Would you like some of it? Would you? Aww, you’re so cute!"

I’m sure book cover designers and illustrators can’t possibly read all the books for which they are asked to design/illustrate book covers but in my reading experiences it remains a very unusual absence in 10 chapters of an introduced potential pet in a cozy and particularly a cozy of only 200 pages.

Setting the highlight of the disconnect aside, I look forward to continuing to read the series to see what the future holds for Claudia and her fixer-upper.… (mer)