Title: Scrapbook of Secrets
Author: Mollie Cox Bryan
Publisher: Kensington (February 1, 2012)
Format: eBook; Pgs 304
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Source: Library
Series: Cumberland Creek #1
What is Cumberland Creek, Virginia coming to when eighty-year-old Beatrice walks home from the market only to find a knife sticking out of the back of her neck and just that morning an ambulance was at Maggie Rae Dasher’s home in response to a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In long rambling sections, much like this one, we come to find out that while on their way home from the hospital where Beatrice had had surgery to remove the embedded blade, a group of croppers (apparently this is a term of endearment for scrapbookers) comes across boxes of scrap-booking materials that have been dumped on the curb in front of Maggie Rae’s home. Why would the husband of a young woman who had recently died be in a rush to clear her and her things from his memory?
Being scrapbook queens, the women cannot let this atrocity lie and gather up the materials so they can “snoop”, I mean create scrapbooks for the dead woman’s children. It was during their foray through the bags and boxes that they came across letters, letters that quite clearly spelled out that Maggie Rae had a secret life known as Juicy X.
This book went from stupid to ridiculous to downright insulting. You have murder, you have secrets, you have infidelity, you have spiritualism, you have old order Mennonites and to top it off, you have quantum physics. Yes, you read that right – this book has jumped the shark into quantum physics. It was if Ms Bryan had no idea what she wanted to write and just decided to throw everything in there in hopes that something would appeal to the reader.
By the end, I could care less who died, why they died or who actually did it. I am beginning to wonder if publishers and editors are becoming as frustrated with this whole cozy mystery genre as I am since they seem to print just about anything that comes across their desk.
Raise the bar Kensington.
In long rambling sections, much like this one, we come to find out that while on their way home from the hospital where Beatrice had had surgery to remove the embedded blade, a group of croppers (apparently this is a term of endearment for scrapbookers) comes across boxes of scrap-booking materials that have been dumped on the curb in front of Maggie Rae’s home. Why would the husband of a young woman who had recently died be in a rush to clear her and her things from his memory?
Being scrapbook queens, the women cannot let this atrocity lie and gather up the materials so they can “snoop”, I mean create scrapbooks for the dead woman’s children. It was during their foray through the bags and boxes that they came across letters, letters that quite clearly spelled out that Maggie Rae had a secret life known as Juicy X.
This book went from stupid to ridiculous to downright insulting. You have murder, you have secrets, you have infidelity, you have spiritualism, you have old order Mennonites and to top it off, you have quantum physics. Yes, you read that right – this book has jumped the shark into quantum physics. It was if Ms Bryan had no idea what she wanted to write and just decided to throw everything in there in hopes that something would appeal to the reader.
By the end, I could care less who died, why they died or who actually did it. I am beginning to wonder if publishers and editors are becoming as frustrated with this whole cozy mystery genre as I am since they seem to print just about anything that comes across their desk.
Raise the bar Kensington.
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