Book Review: Digging Up Daisy by Sherry Lynn (Mainely Murder Mysteries #1)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Characters and setting

Cons: A couple major clues left unexplained

The Bottom Line:

Shoe in the garden

Sets up interesting plot

But unresolved clues

Intriguing Premise, but Execution Suffers

I often feel the conundrum of a book lover.  I have so many books on my to be read pile and so many series I’ve started but I’m behind on.  Yet, I still feel the pull to a new series starting.  What if it becomes a new favorite series?  That’s why I picked up Digging Up Daisy.  It sounded like a fun series debut.  While I did love parts of it, the execution left something to be desired.

Kinsley Clark loves her life in Harborside, a small town on the coast of Maine.  She owns a landscape design company, SeaScapes, and is in high demand, especially as summer starts since the Walk Inns event, an open house for the Bed and Breakfasts in the area, including the one her aunt runs, is coming soon.

As Kinsley is trying to spruce up the landscaping at her aunt’s inn, she discovers a shoe buried in the garden area.  She immediately recognizes it as one connected to a murder.  The local media has dubbed it the Cinderella murder since the victim was found in a field missing one shoe – the show Kinsley now holds in her hand.  What does this mean for her aunt and her bed and breakfast?

I struggled a bit to get into chapter one.  Mind you, chapter one ends where I ended my teaser – with Kinsley discovering the shoe.  However, leading up to that, we get a data dump on Kinsley and her history.  Yes, we needed this information eventually, but the detail we got here made for a slow start.  I feel like I am being nitpicky, and I am to a certain extent.  But do know that the plot starts quickly.

And it picks up from there.  I was actually very happy once things got going and Kinsley works with the police and keeps coming up with viable suspects and clues and red herrings.

Then we hit the climax.  There are a couple of clues that aren’t accounted for when we hit the final page.  And these were major clues that Kinsley brought up several times over the course of the book.  I’m also left wondering how a couple of characters knew what they knew.  I can come up with explanations for a couple of things, but I’m not sure they really make enough sense to pay off how important they were to the plot.

It’s a shame the ending didn’t work for me since I did like the characters.  Kinsley is smart and driven.  Her aunt is caring.  We also get to know Kinsley’s best friend and a potential love interest.

I also liked how Kinsley worked with the police, which is always nice to see in a cozy.

And the setting of a coastal town in Maine was wonderful.  I would definitely love to visit.

At the end of the book, we not only get some gardening tips, but we also get a couple of delicious sounding recipes.

I really wanted to be able to recommend this book, but sadly, the issues with the plot keep me from giving it a full recommendation.  It’s an okay debut, but Digging Up Daisy had the potential to be better.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.