Thursday, May 31, 2007

Deadly Appraisal by Jane K. Cleland

Josie Prescott is settling into her new life. She loves her business and has great employees. When she offers to do sponsor a Gala event for the Portsmouth Ladies Guild, she has nothing but great hopes for it. That all falls apart when one of the main members, Maisey dies suddenly on the stage before they can announce the winners of the different items auctioned. Josie is looked at as the prime suspect in the murder so she once again has to battle to clear her name. With her only support being her lawyer, she desperately does her best to hang in there. She has little successes throughout with her business but she wonders if she is just trying to do too much on her own.

I enjoyed the second book in the series by Ms. Cleland. She has a wonderful way of portraying the characters that emotions are felt when you are reading it. I was swept up in this book and didn’t want it to end. Boy I hope there is more!

I loved seeing past characters finding their way into the story like Sasha, Gretchen, Eric, and Fred. They are wonderful employees to have and I loved seeing the relationship between them and Josie deepens further. I got really irritated with Detective Rowcliff. I know he was just doing his job. Max put it wonderfully when he said the Detective had a problem of “persistent jerkitis” on page 245. I could not have described it better. Max really came to the top for Josie. He had done so in the last book but I really felt you got a better sense of whom he is. Josie is a sweet person but gets overwhelmed easily but when uncertainty is all around it makes complete sense.
I give this book a 5/5 because it carried the storylines from the previous book very well. I felt like I was coming home and I hope there are more to come. It was wonderfully written and expressed. I loved seeing how things changed and how Josie did get some more confidence. Great series and one I highly recommend but do please read Consigned to Death first.

Now I have a romance story to read and then Pyschic Eye by Abby Cooper. :)