Ashley's Review: Death Comes to Town (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #1) by K.J. Emrick

Death Comes to Town (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #1) by K.J. Emrick

Publication Date: December 11th 2013

Genre: Adult Paranormal Mystery

Pages: 110

Format: Kindle

Source: Free on Amazon

Read: September 02 to 03, 2014

Goodreads

 

 

~Summary~

 

Darcy Sweet would like to think that she is just an ordinary woman, happy in her life running the Sweet Read bookstore. But she isn't ordinary. She has a connection to the other side that seems to draw her into mysterious situations more often than not. Add to the mix the antics of a rather naughty, slightly psychic cat and the eccentric ghost of her great-aunt Millie, and you have a recipe for anything but the ordinary.

When Darcy's neighbor is murdered she is drawn into the mystery against her will when she finds the body. She tries to leave the investigation to the police, one of which is her sister, but an overheard conversation and a small nudge from the other side has her investigating the murder. The stakes are raised when the murderer strikes again. Who was killing the people in her life?

Things are complicated even more by her building attraction to her sister's new cop partner, who makes it clear he does not appreciate Darcy's interference in the investigation. Sparks fly between the two of them as they get further into the mystery surrounding the deaths.

With a town full of suspects how will Darcy work out who the murderer is? None of the pieces to the puzzle fit. Things become more complicated and dangerous as Darcy's own life is threatened. Will she survive to see justice served?

 

 

~My Thoughts~

 

At first this was a fun quick read but then Death Comes to Town started to dwindle for me.

 

At the end and a little before that, the characters started to feel a bit two dimensional. In the beginning you learn a lot about Darcy and her quirky life. I enjoyed it, she owns a book store and has a cat that knows things before anyone else does. She's part of a book club and her sister is a cop. Oh yeah, and she can see ghost! All the elements of a fun read, especially when her cat leads her to a dead body.

 

It was someone she knew so of course she has to find out who did it. She starts to investigate and this leads her to work with her ex-husband. They hate each other to the t and he's constantly bugging her about a bunch of photos she has no idea what he's talking about. I'm trying to remember if that part of the book was tied up nicely? Anyways, their investigating leads the killer to strike again and brings Darcy deeper into the mystery.

 

This is when things start to go down for me. I understand everyone has to be a suspect until they can be counted out. But cops don't waste the time and energy to arrest everyone that has one little thing that might make them a suspect! No, that's not how it's done in the real world! >_< They like arrest a couple of people before they actually catch the murderer and they arrested these people on little accounts. Nothing that I saw was a solid reason to arrest people. Again, this lost it's realism for me cause cops aren't going to arrest everyone they think are suspects. They'll go talk to them first and then they'll do what they have to do but they just don't right off the bat bring them in handcuffs to the station. This bugged me.

 

Other than those things and the romance, I just wasn't feeling it and it was a bit cliché, I did enjoy this short cozy read but I just wasn't satisfied. This is a short read and I did love her dead aunt Millie helping her out with the mystery. She gives a big clue and once it came into play, I knew something was up. If you like paranormal cozy mysteries you might like this more than me. It's free on Amazon. I think the reason why I just wasn't happy at the end is because I just couldn't really connect to the characters and they started to fall flat. I know the author was shadowing for the next book so hopefully they'll become more rounded in the next installment because it was a fun light read to just pass the time. 

 

 

 

 

Sweet Readings Everybody!