Abandoned by Booklikes

Please note that I received a free ARC in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my rating or review. 

So this was a solid debut, but there were still some issues with it. The book became very repetitive after a fashion, and the book was overly explained in parts. I honestly didn't get the main character's (Quille) love for her dead boyfriend (Marco). Maybe if the author had made sure that we as readers got a sense for him and Quille together as a couple first, I would have cared more. I will say that I was fascinated by Quille as a character, and wonder how Lilly plans on having her involved in mysteries in the future. 

"The Worried Man" is the first book in the Q.C. Davis mystery series. This first book finds ex-actress, now lawyer, Q.C. (goes by Quille) about to move in with her boyfriend of a few months Marco. When Quille goes to his place she finds him dead. The police and Marco's ex-wife all suspect that he fell off the wagon again and committed suicide. Quille believes that someone killed Marco. Marco's son asks her to investigate, and Quille does.

Quille as I said above was a fascinating character. You find out she used to act. She currently sings in a trio. Currently she is an attorney and seems to be doing pretty okay for herself. You find out that Quille is named for a dead sister and her mother has never really recovered from the first Quille's death. Quille runs into Marco months before his death after singing with her group and feels a spark. I have to say that I didn't feel a spark, and it's never really explained how Marco recognized her from her acting days. This part felt rushed to me since I think that Lilly was more focused on the murder portion of the book. 

The other characters in this book, Quille's trio group, a friend who gets involved with investigating, all were interesting to me. I hope Lilly ensures they are developed a bit more in the next book. This book really just focuses on Marco and Quille's feelings for him. Reading about Marco from Quille's POV doesn't help especially at times when I didn't like his character. He sounded like a mess and I wondered why she was even with the guy at times. 

The writing was good, though I did say it got repetitive in parts. Also Lilly over explained things so much at times. For example, she goes into why a person that Quille knows is named Mensa Sam. All she had to say is that the guy was a member of Mensa and tells everyone about it. Instead I think we go into three paragraphs about it and it wasn't necessary. Same thing with her explaining that she gets nasty migraines and she needs to take aspirin and do other things in order to stop the migraines. We just need a quick reminder about that, not an explanation every single time. 

The book takes place in Chicago and I have to say that Lilly does a good job of describing the city and other locations in it. 

The ending though felt a bit off to me. I think it's because I got a little lost about who did what to who and why it was a thing worth killing over.