Description (from cover):'Nestled in the barrier islands of Florida's Gulf Coast, Fort Myers Beach is home to Mary 'Sassy' Cabot and Bridget Mayfield--owners of the bookstore cafe, Read 'Em and Eat. But when they're not dishing about books or serving up scones, Sassy and Bridgy are keeping tabs on murder.
Read 'Em and Eat is known for its delicious treats and colorful clientele. There's Miss Augusta Maddox, who enjoys lecturing tourists on the rumors of sunken treasure among the islands, and her cousin Delia Batson, a regular at the Emily Dickinson table who is painfully shy...which makes the news of her murder all the more shocking.
No one is more distraught than Augusta. She wants Delia's killer found--and she's not taking no for an answer. Now Sassy is on the case, and she'd better act fast before there's any more trouble in paradise.'
My thoughts:
This one actually started off slow and took me a little while to get into. Eventually, I did get there and began to enjoy the characters and the storyline. I loved the setting in this one, which is a small island in Florida's Gulf Coast, where everyone knows everyone and the town is full of suspicious characters. I enjoyed Sassy and Bridgy's characters, I just wish that the author could have came up with some not-so-old sounding names. Sassy and Bridgy are in their thirties, but with names like that, you would think that they were much older in their sixties or something.
I also have somewhat of an issue with the name of the cafe being Read 'Em and Eat. Really? There were no other names that sounded more unique? I enjoyed the literary theme of the book as of course, I love to read books and love everything literary, but this one for some reason just didn't go so well for me. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. It is the first in a new series and as I have mentioned on this blog a million times, it's either hit or miss. There seems to be no middle ground with me when it comes to debut books in new cozy series. I either love it or hate it. Unfortunately, this one landed in the "hate" pile.
As I stated earlier, the beginning was slow but the conclusion was just lame. It was very predictable and not very exciting. I expected more as I was reading this one, because in the middle or so, I started to enjoy this book a lot more and then the ending happened and ruined the whole book for me. I think that I will give the next one in this series a shot, but I'm not really holding my breath.
Overall Rating: 2.5
Title: Well Read, Then Dead
Author: Terrie Farley Moran
Series: Read 'Em and Eat Mystery #1
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: August 5, 2014
Pages: 304
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Get It: Amazon; Barnes & Noble
Disclaimer: This book was purchased by myself and I reviewed this book without compensation of any kind. All thoughts and opinions are solely mine.
