Pick up your Bonus Gift with this brand new cozy mystery series featuring women sleuths, Olivia M. Granville and her friend, Tuesday. Note that this is a newly edited version with a new cover.
What would you do if you sent a $30,000 piece of furniture out for repair and it came back with a deadly package inside?
That’s the dilemma facing Olivia M. Granville, OMG to her friends and foes, as though the award-winning architect, interior designer and antiques dealer didn’t have enough on her hands.
Olivia, a transplanted Los Angeleno, is the newest resident of Darling Valley, a picturesque town just outside of San Francisco and home of the DV Bills, as Olivia calls the largest concentration of billionaires anywhere in the country. Like the Astors and Rockefellers of old who outdid each other building humongous summer cottages in Newport, the DV Bills outdo each other with eye-popping piles of sticks stuffed with museum quality art hidden in the Marin hills. It was Olivia’s plan to make a killing decorating them. Click above link to read more.
My Take:
Confusing Cute Cozy
Armoires and Arsenic was a cute read, no glaring omissions or mistakes by Page, the story flowed smoothly, but could have benefited from an editor or proofreader.
I found the non-stop clothing and fashion references confusing at best and irrelevant at worst. Page could have explained why clothing was so important to Olivia and how it fit in with the scheme of the story and plot. Why was it so relevant to an architect, antiques dealer? Which profession was she in, really? Kind of unrealistic for one person to have that many successful careers. These two plot points were wholly unnecessary.
My other little thought on Olivia, was why was she tied so slanderously to the other architect? Page wrote him as some rock star to the rock stars, so well-covered by the media that Olivia couldn’t possibly be successful on her own. I can’t agree with Page’s anti-woman plot line. Which brings me to my next point. She writes Oliva as so obsessed-not-obsessed with the leading man…er…detective. Olivia has more important details in her life to obsess about, like her murder charge, keeping antique and architect clients and so on.
The plot itself was ok, Page knows how to write and keep a readers attention. She somewhat pushes through the plot at the end of the book, as if stating she can’t wait to end it. As a reader, I feel your pain. Overall, a good, mindless first draft as a cozy. I give 3 stars.
Brick ONeil 