I've enjoyed this series since its inception. Lila Wilkins is a smart, optimistic, talented woman who grabbed the chance to follow her bliss. She's found it at the Novel Idea Literary Agency and in the arms of a police officer named Sean. Lila's job is one of the many reasons why I enjoy this series; I love learning how a literary agency works. Having Damian York be an expert in landscaping, interior design, and food was icing on the cake because I'm extremely interested in all three-- as long as I'm not expected to be in charge of the third.
In this fourth book, the author deals with the Cabot Cove Syndrome-- what happens when a small town has recurring dead bodies. Lila is now known as the "murder magnet" since she's always the one who stumbles over the corpses. She is not happy with her new nickname. In fact, Played by the Book reminded me so much of Cabot Cove that I almost immediately knew the identity of the killer.
But knowing that is small beans in a character-driven mystery, and Arlington has delivered a fine cast of secondary characters, from Lila's son, to the man in her life, to her mother, to her best friend, and on to the people with whom she works. An interesting group of people living and working in an idyllic town-- perfect weekend reading.
But by the end, I had a strong feeling that this is the last book in the series. There was no preview chapter of the next book, and throughout Lila seemed to be paying more attention to tying up loose ends with all the most important people in her life than she was in solving the mystery. If this is indeed the case, I will be sorry to see the series end, but I'll also look forward to finding out what Lucy Arlington has in store for us next.
In this fourth book, the author deals with the Cabot Cove Syndrome-- what happens when a small town has recurring dead bodies. Lila is now known as the "murder magnet" since she's always the one who stumbles over the corpses. She is not happy with her new nickname. In fact, Played by the Book reminded me so much of Cabot Cove that I almost immediately knew the identity of the killer.
But knowing that is small beans in a character-driven mystery, and Arlington has delivered a fine cast of secondary characters, from Lila's son, to the man in her life, to her mother, to her best friend, and on to the people with whom she works. An interesting group of people living and working in an idyllic town-- perfect weekend reading.
But by the end, I had a strong feeling that this is the last book in the series. There was no preview chapter of the next book, and throughout Lila seemed to be paying more attention to tying up loose ends with all the most important people in her life than she was in solving the mystery. If this is indeed the case, I will be sorry to see the series end, but I'll also look forward to finding out what Lucy Arlington has in store for us next.
Richard M. (algernon99) -
Lila Watkins is a literary agent who handles mystery novels for an agency in a small, picturesque town called Inspiration Valley, North Carolina. The town has remade itself for the tourist industry into a book-related theme town, of which the top-flight literary agency is a big player. As an avid reader of mysteries and as a writer of non-fiction, how could I not be fascinated by such a book?
Not surprisingly, this series is one my favorites, which I have been reading with pleasure since the first book, Buried in a Book. This entry into the series lives up to its expectations.
The premise here is that local boy made good, Damian York, is the star of his own TV show about landscaping and gardening. He has written a book, and it falls to Lila to ramrod a last-minute gala book-launch event there in Inspiration Valley. With the help of her coworker agents, things are going well when bad things start to happen.
First, while working in her garden at home, Lila digs up a human skull. Generally speaking, no one likes to learn that their yard has been used as a burial plot. Then, a bit later, one of the gardening club ladies whose yard was to be a stop on the Garden Walk that is part of the planned festivities is murderedwith a gardening shovel, of course. While these matters are the rightful responsibilities of Lilas long-time boyfriend, a police detective, somehow Lila needs to be involved in figuring what happened and who done it.
The plot moves on to a satisfactory conclusion with an appropriate sprinkling of false leads, new surprises, and all the other ingredients that make up a pleasant cozy mystery. The writing is easy to read, well balanced (not overly descriptive, for instance, but giving an occasional description of someones outfit or flower garden), and wellcozy.
All of this is good news indeed. The two authors who collaborated to produce the first three books in the series have moved on. The publisher selected another writer, Susan Furlong, to take over the series. In my experience, a replacement writer most often produces less than satisfactory books. Happily, there isnt even a hint of disappointment in this case. In fact, if you didnt know about the substitution, you probably would not notice any change at all. One of the previous coauthors, Ellery Adams, has a unique ability to evoke charming, almost enchanted scenes that take place in special places. Although this book had no particularly enchanted scenes, there was a special feeling about Lilas little yellow cottage that happily continues from the previous books.
Its funny that Lilas agency work required her to find a writer to replace a well-loved author. The real-life author switch here worked very well.
The things that make this book and this series work so well are a great lead character who is easy to like, a wealth of ongoing series characters who make Lilas life pleasant and interesting, a unique setting in a literary agency, and excellent writing. Things that provide just the slightest hint of a drawback include the apparent necessity that Lila be physically threatened in each story and a bit of boredom with yet another book-launch event. (Not everyone has read the same set of mysteries that I have, but I seem to have encountered a few too many of these events in the last few years. There are a lot of cozy mystery series set in bookstores, for instance; they use book signing events all the time.)
Those tiny drawbacks are minor cavils. I loved this book and look forward with great anticipation to many future adventures with Lila Wilkins and her cronies.
Not surprisingly, this series is one my favorites, which I have been reading with pleasure since the first book, Buried in a Book. This entry into the series lives up to its expectations.
The premise here is that local boy made good, Damian York, is the star of his own TV show about landscaping and gardening. He has written a book, and it falls to Lila to ramrod a last-minute gala book-launch event there in Inspiration Valley. With the help of her coworker agents, things are going well when bad things start to happen.
First, while working in her garden at home, Lila digs up a human skull. Generally speaking, no one likes to learn that their yard has been used as a burial plot. Then, a bit later, one of the gardening club ladies whose yard was to be a stop on the Garden Walk that is part of the planned festivities is murderedwith a gardening shovel, of course. While these matters are the rightful responsibilities of Lilas long-time boyfriend, a police detective, somehow Lila needs to be involved in figuring what happened and who done it.
The plot moves on to a satisfactory conclusion with an appropriate sprinkling of false leads, new surprises, and all the other ingredients that make up a pleasant cozy mystery. The writing is easy to read, well balanced (not overly descriptive, for instance, but giving an occasional description of someones outfit or flower garden), and wellcozy.
All of this is good news indeed. The two authors who collaborated to produce the first three books in the series have moved on. The publisher selected another writer, Susan Furlong, to take over the series. In my experience, a replacement writer most often produces less than satisfactory books. Happily, there isnt even a hint of disappointment in this case. In fact, if you didnt know about the substitution, you probably would not notice any change at all. One of the previous coauthors, Ellery Adams, has a unique ability to evoke charming, almost enchanted scenes that take place in special places. Although this book had no particularly enchanted scenes, there was a special feeling about Lilas little yellow cottage that happily continues from the previous books.
Its funny that Lilas agency work required her to find a writer to replace a well-loved author. The real-life author switch here worked very well.
The things that make this book and this series work so well are a great lead character who is easy to like, a wealth of ongoing series characters who make Lilas life pleasant and interesting, a unique setting in a literary agency, and excellent writing. Things that provide just the slightest hint of a drawback include the apparent necessity that Lila be physically threatened in each story and a bit of boredom with yet another book-launch event. (Not everyone has read the same set of mysteries that I have, but I seem to have encountered a few too many of these events in the last few years. There are a lot of cozy mystery series set in bookstores, for instance; they use book signing events all the time.)
Those tiny drawbacks are minor cavils. I loved this book and look forward with great anticipation to many future adventures with Lila Wilkins and her cronies.
Dollycas's Thoughts
Lila Wilkens has my dream job. I would even love to do a bit of sleuthing.
We return to Inspiration Valley for the 4th time and Lila is helping to organize a grand affair to help launch Damian York's new gardening book. As part of the event Lila's own garden is to be featured but when she is pulling out some old shrubs she makes a terrible discovery. A human skull, thought to be a young woman. As if that isn't enough across town another woman is found dead/murdered in her garden. So in addition to her workload Lila now needs to get down and dirty to solve an old mystery and a new one.
The first three books in this series were written by a writing team of Ellery Adams and Sylvia May. Susan Furlong becomes Lucy Arlington for this story and I truthfully didn't notice much of a change in writing style, which is good, but not an easy feat, so kudos to Ms. Furlong.
I really enjoyed the behind the scenes look at an book agent's job and the joy Lily has when she can tell an author she has sold their book to a publisher. Then the way she helps their stories shine with some really good advice and nurturing. In a time when big publishers are cutting back on their cozy mystery contacts Lila gives us insight to the publishing process. I just hope this series continues to survive the cuts.
I really treasure the relationship Lila has with her son Trey. I will not lie, it made me miss my son Kris a lot.
In addition to the mysteries there is some romance with Sean and Lila and Makayla and Jay. Sean may not be moving fast enough in the direction Lila would like but Jay has pulled out all the stops to move his relationship with Makayla forward.
The mysteries themselves are very interesting. Are the connected in some way? or is it just a coincidence that the skull/skeleton was found as another murder happened. Lila wants to get justice for the young girl buried on her property but she is also invested in finding the killer that left a garden club member smelling her roses for the last time.
I was completely captivated by this cozy. We are given just a little tease for the next what to expect for Lila in the next installment. The good thing about reviewing this book right now is that Off the Books was released this past February and it on my shelf calling me. I see some juggling in my reading schedule happening soon.
Lila Wilkens has my dream job. I would even love to do a bit of sleuthing.
We return to Inspiration Valley for the 4th time and Lila is helping to organize a grand affair to help launch Damian York's new gardening book. As part of the event Lila's own garden is to be featured but when she is pulling out some old shrubs she makes a terrible discovery. A human skull, thought to be a young woman. As if that isn't enough across town another woman is found dead/murdered in her garden. So in addition to her workload Lila now needs to get down and dirty to solve an old mystery and a new one.
The first three books in this series were written by a writing team of Ellery Adams and Sylvia May. Susan Furlong becomes Lucy Arlington for this story and I truthfully didn't notice much of a change in writing style, which is good, but not an easy feat, so kudos to Ms. Furlong.
I really enjoyed the behind the scenes look at an book agent's job and the joy Lily has when she can tell an author she has sold their book to a publisher. Then the way she helps their stories shine with some really good advice and nurturing. In a time when big publishers are cutting back on their cozy mystery contacts Lila gives us insight to the publishing process. I just hope this series continues to survive the cuts.
I really treasure the relationship Lila has with her son Trey. I will not lie, it made me miss my son Kris a lot.
In addition to the mysteries there is some romance with Sean and Lila and Makayla and Jay. Sean may not be moving fast enough in the direction Lila would like but Jay has pulled out all the stops to move his relationship with Makayla forward.
The mysteries themselves are very interesting. Are the connected in some way? or is it just a coincidence that the skull/skeleton was found as another murder happened. Lila wants to get justice for the young girl buried on her property but she is also invested in finding the killer that left a garden club member smelling her roses for the last time.
I was completely captivated by this cozy. We are given just a little tease for the next what to expect for Lila in the next installment. The good thing about reviewing this book right now is that Off the Books was released this past February and it on my shelf calling me. I see some juggling in my reading schedule happening soon.
Another very good mystery in this series !
