Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

The Secret, Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams

11 reviews

planreadrepeat's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This cozy mystery has a quartet of ladies who each have their own mysterious past. They form a friendship when they resolve to find the cause of death from a recent acquaintance. 

The characters are complex and intriguing. The town sounds adorable and serene. Who wouldn’t like a place with a spa, bakery, book shop and a good hair dresser. The story was good and nice and twisty.
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vanesst's review against another edition

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lighthearted mysterious relaxing medium-paced

2.0

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tangleroot_eli's review

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lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
First, a couple things I appreciate about this book:

  • Our Heroes are pretty bad at sleuthing, and they admit it. A nice choice in a subgenre full of amateur detectives who’ve never investigated so much as a checkbook register but can suddenly solve a murder
  • A group of women! Who are friends! And support each other! Rather than constantly tearing each other down!
  • Adams has attempted to give the Society members “tragic pasts” and really seems to have considered the ramifications of that for their interpersonal relationships 

So those things are good! And then there’s… the rest of the book.
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helalost's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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maeverose's review against another edition

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Stopped at 18% (first three chapters)

I can just tell it’s not gonna be for me so I’d rather not bother. I didn’t hate it. But there were some things that I disliked.

First off it feels like it was written by a 40 something year old white woman, for other 40 something year old white women. Therefore I don’t really feel like I fit the target demographic. The dialogue was also very unnatural and weird. The characters don’t talk like real people.

I didn’t like the way she describes Nora’s disfigurement in such negative words most of the time, when the author herself is not disfigured. Also, only going off of the part I read, it felt a little like her disfigurement was her entire personality? The only information we got about her had to do with her accident or appearance, other than her being a librarian-turned-bookseller and liking books. She was depressed and stand off ish because of her accident and she liked to tell people to read books… that was it, that’s her personality.

There’s the trope that I despise of using very fatphobic language to describe an unlikable character.

I also thought June was a bit of a racial stereotype but maybe that’s just me.
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strawberrydolly's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was my first Ellery Adams, my first cozy mystery (and first StoryGraph review) and I really enjoyed it. 

A fair warning that this review contains slight (vague) spoilers.

I’ve heard some say it’s slow-paced and I can’t argue with that too much, but I’d still say it was more of a medium pace. The plot never slowed down or went off track. Lots of different events kept things interesting and even the side love story made some contributing points to the overall mystery. The reason behind the murder itself, confused me at first, but after the entire situation was explained a few times, I understood it. 

I definitely loved all the characters. They were all diverse and different. I only had a problem with June and sometimes Nora who said Hester was young and naive several times throughout the book. It just seemed unnecessary and was a tad bit annoying to hear it. It wouldn’t have bothered me otherwise, but it definitely had that kind of feeling in the cases of boomers muttering, “kids these days,” under their breath. Other than that, The characters were great and lovable, despite their past. Estella was my favorite and I hope to see more of her in the next book, considering what happened to her in this one. I also loved Jed and am excited to see his and Nora’s relationship grow.
I did enjoy how the characters had depth to them and everyone, even minor characters had secrets and a hidden past.

Another notable mention is there were SO many literary refences that a few have to go over your head. Luckily, most of them don’t hold any significance to the major plotline and if it does, its throughly explained. It’s simply a more enjoyable read if you understand them. I enjoyed the twist this book gave, I truly wasn’t expecting it. The afterword definitely got me hooked into reading the next book (which I was planning on anyways). Overall, 4.5/5.
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kibbles15's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I liked this book, but I did not love it.  I felt that the plot was slow and the characters themselves were not developed as much as I would have liked. I also feel that the sexual content, while mild, was more explicit than necessary. Note while this is considered a "Cozy murder mystery",  several hard topics are discussed in the process as the four main characters get to know each other.  These include domestic and child abuse, teen pregnancy, drunk driving...to name a few.  That being said, I do think the theme of friendship through adversity was a nice touch to the story.  
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misse3's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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alex_delart's review

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adventurous dark funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

You can tell the author loves books very much and if you like me have been stuck in a reading rut, this book might be the one for you (it also includes many namedrops and recs so it may be a gateway to other lovely titles). The mystery solution is quite satisfying, the book had me guessing all along. I felt inspired by the courage of the members of the secret club, they are people of no big influence or power and yet they risk their livelihoods for whats right, and they listen to their intuition. Im so glad that there is a sequel as I would miss the characters very much. 
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alexleigh20's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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