What Happened to Martha?
I’ve been meaning to try a book from Lynn Cahoon for ages. I even have several of her books on my Kindle app, bought when they were on sale. But when I saw that she was starting a new series, I decided that I’d jump in with The Tuesday Night Survivors’ Club.
After surviving breast cancer, Rarity Cole decided to move closer to her best friend, so she’s settling into Sedona, Arizona, and opening a bookstore called The Next Chapter. She’s also starting the Tuesday Night Survivors’ Book Club, designed to be part support system and part book club for other cancer survivors like her. The club only has a few members to start, but she is excited to get to know them better and read some fun books with them.
However, Martha, one of the members, fails to turn up at a meeting. Martha had kept mostly to herself, but Rarity and the other members can’t help but be concerned. Will they figure out what happened to her?
It’s easy to see why Lynn has such a large following in the cozy mystery community. This is a fun debut. I really enjoyed the setting, and Rarity is a great main character.
However, I do have a few issues with the book. One of these was that I had a hard time figuring out why Rarity and the others got involved to the degree they did. They’re willingness to jump into a potentially dangerous situation for someone they barely knew felt a bit of a stretch to me. But this is a cozy mystery, so I went along with it.
It helped that I liked the main cast. Rarity, her best friend, Sam, and their potential love interests were all fantastic. I enjoyed all four of them very much. In fact, I would request more page time for them together as a group in future books. Unfortunately, I did feel the rest of the cast were not as developed as they could be. But that’s what future books in the series are for, right?
Unfortunately, there are a few editing errors late in the book. I’m not talking about simple typos, but about the characters having two Saturdays in a row. Hopefully, that one was caught after the ARC I read was put together and before the final edition came out. We also get a scene that set up something that never happened. It didn’t make any difference in the outcome of the mystery, fortunately, but it would have been nice to see that paid off.
On the other hand, we do have a solid mystery. It doesn’t unfold like many of the books I read, but that’s fine since I was caught up in the story. I did figure out the who a little early, but I had to keep reading to figure out the why.
As I said earlier, I really did enjoy the setting. I think I’ve been to Sedona once, but it’s been years. After reading this, I’m ready to visit and explore the area.
I also enjoyed the cancer survivor aspect of the book. This unique hook played out well, and I liked the different perspective the characters brought to things.
As a bonus, there is a recipe at the end, too.
The Tuesday Night Survivors’ Club introduces us to characters who have the potential to become great friends. I’ll definitely be visiting them again.
NOTE: I received an ARC of the book.
Great you caught all those errors. Hopefully they were fixed.
ReplyDeleteI’m looking forward to this new series. I really like Lynn’s Tourist Trap and her Cat Latimer series.
ReplyDeleteNice review, I like that it has a recipe at the end.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review Mark!
ReplyDelete