Carmela Bertrand loves running her scrapbook shop in New Orleans. She started it so that she felt like she was doing something meaningful. Business sure is booming until one of the elite dies during Mardi Gras. Now she feels she has to figure out who is behind the crime because the police have tagged her estranged husband Seamus as the prime suspect. An important clue lies in a place she would never think to look. That would be one of her customer’s scrapbooks.
Laura Childs tells lovely stories. I was swept up in the town and the people who live there. The town is not fictional but the characters she created were wonderful. It was nice to read a story set in that town that had nothing to do with vampires. Mind you they have their place, but this was a light and refreshing read. It was just what I needed.
Carmela has some figuring out to do in this book. Being estranged from the man she thought loved her is not easy and then when he is the main suspect in a crime. She does not want to see him hurt but at the same time she wonders if she should really help him. After all, he walked out on her and she was left scrambling. Yet Carmela decides to be the better person and help him out. She has a lot of surprises coming her way and she has no idea who really did commit the crime. The customers for her shop were so eccentric. I just fell in love with them. Ava was my favorite and the one she seemed to spend the most time with. She was also creative whether making masks or selling items in her voodoo shop.
This is a great way to start out the series. I cannot wait to read the next one. I found all three books in one and that book is called Death by Design. It is nice to have them all together and that is pretty rare. As a person who scrap books I also enjoyed it for the ideas she used. Though not sure I would use them, they do generate some ideas of my own.
Laura Childs/New Author/Cozy Mystery/256 pages/Scrap booking/ 4 out of 5
So up nextg are Photo finished and Bound For Murder than You've Been Warned by James Patterson and then last but not least is Away by Amy Bloom. :) Have a good weekend all. :)
