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Abandoned by Booklikes

Government drone by day and book lover and geek girl by night!

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This Series is Beginning A Slow Decline

Lowcountry Bonfire - Susan M. Boyer

It definitely pains me to say this but the Liz Talbot cozy mystery series that I've enjoyed for the past couple of years is getting pretty meh.

 

I don't know what else to say besides the fact that I think once Liz chose her now-husband Nate and they started investigating together the book just lost I guess that drive that the first couple of books really had.

 

I mean I love cozy mysteries. I can read them all day any day if the series is done right. So I don't know what happened with this one  I don't know if the romance ended up impacting the story or if the whole thing with Liz being connected to her dead friend (Colleen) who now is a ghost that comes back to help her solve cases just started to get really ridiculous in the last two books.

 

"Lowcountry Bonfire" we have Liz and Nate dealing with their client who after finding out that her husband cheated on her proceeds to set his beloved car on fire. Only problem is the husband's found dead in the trunk of the car. I liked the mystery aspect of this book but once again I felt like the author went a little bit too far with trying to tie the case to things that just didn't make any sense. It just got so absurd I started to roll my eyes after a while.

 

I did like the additional characters that we got some looks into but the book kept coming back to Liz needing to make sure that nothing could be developed on Stella Maris because if something did get built it could mean that years in the future everybody from the island would die if a hurricane came through.

 

Based on reviews from other readers of the series it makes absolutely no sense. Liz has several options that she just keeps ignoring. She could demand that there be more boats brought in for people as the island grows and gets developed. She could try to stop the island from being developed by trying to have restrictions on it.  Something tells me that's a thing in certain parts of the country. Or she could just I don't know move.

 

The writing was okay, but the flow was terrible.

 

There's still subtle shaming of Liz's brother for dating a woman who was a former mistress tied up in one of Liz's last cases. Her sister is absent in this one and so are Nate's awful parents. Liz's father ups the ante in being her kooky relative. Colleen is missing for most of the story, and sorry she's become a hindrance to this series. Either have her gone gone, or being in another specter. Or just get rid of that whole aspect, I don't think it matters when you see how she wasn't around for the majority of this book. 

 

I honestly think the series should have ended when Liz and Nate got married. Now with this dream thing, Boyer is going to keep this a main focus in future books it seems. 

 

I think I'll give it one more book to see if the series picks back up, but if not, I think I'm just going to pass on future books following Liz and her husband as they investigate crimes.