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Once Upon a Seaside Murder by Maggie Blackburn

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I got this one from a clearance sale and still feel like I overpaid. I didn't read the first book and this didn't make me want to do so. Apparently in book one Summer Merriweather's hippie mother, Hildy was killed and she inherited her romance and mystery book store, Beach Reads on a small North Carolina island and is back in her hometown with a sheriff who should have been her father in law if she hadn't left his son at the altar years ago. She's now a Shakespearean professor in Virginia who apparently freaked out over a spider (she has an insane level of arachnophobia) that the students recorded and went viral which somehow is going to cost her her job potentially so now she's on sabbatical trying to decide sell the book store she hated growing up (she's a frakking literary snob) or going back to academia that she also hates.

As a professor currently on sabbatical I can tell you you don't get sabbatical if you're in danger of losing your job (it's a reward of sorts for you to go do research. You also don't get it to go deal with deaths in the family). Summer says it herself in this book 1. She's not known for her kindness. 2. She's not here to be liked.

Two out of two on that. She's snobby, she's mean spirited and she's unlikeable but I soldiered on. Summer's coworker and friends (i.e. her mother's employee and friends) have set up a mystery author mini-con at the store in time for the Christmas rush (I'm sorry I don't buy that a book store in this day in age on a small island is so slammed they can't keep up.) and one of the author's Mimi has written a book based on a local murder 30 years ago at Mermaid Point and Summer's mom had kept a box of clippings on this because of the family involved, a family of wealthy Muslim- Egyptian shipping magnates, one of whom was Summer's unknown father and she's now trying to get to know her half brother and sister, Sam and Fatima.

Mimi gets threatened before she even shows up over this book so Summer invites her to stay with her so she feels safe but when she sees Mimi is armed, she goes from oh poor thing stay with me to this woman sucks. Blackburn tries to retcon Mimi into a bad person as the book goes on (as if someone at Crooked Lane thought to themselves 'why is Summer so anti-Mimi when this woman has done NOTHING.' ) So Mimi gets worse and worse, the other authors don't like her. How is it even legal she used a real crime? OMG what? Is that not the tagline for Law & Order? Ripped from the headlines. That is standard practice in mysteries but they act like it's a capital offense.

Finally Mimi is kidnapped and could be Summer's family is involved. Someone wants Summer to sell the book store for Mimi's freedom but she won't tell anyone or let anyone else (the letter was sent to the other authors) tell the sheriff and they go along with it even after body parts start showing up. Are we serious? They're supposed to be being watched but the sheriff comes to the house multiple times and Summer talks to him elsewhere so if they are being watched they have seen Summer talking to him so why not tell them?

Not much makes sense here. The big twist is rather ridiculous and Summer is so unlikeable I kept hoping whoever took Mimi would get her too. I'll not be following this series.



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