Smugglers & Scones (Moorehaven Mysteries, #1) by Morgan C. Talbot Narrator: Amina Cee
Series: Moorehaven Mysteries #1
Published by Red Adept Publishing, LLC on 09-20-17
Genres: Cozy Mystery, Mystery
Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
Format: Audiobook
Source: Author
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Overal Rating:
Pippa Winterbourne runs Moorehaven, the Oregon Coast’s quirkiest bed-and-breakfast and former home of world-famous mystery writer A. Raymond Moore. Guests come there to write their own crime novels. When a real-life murder takes a local’s life and washes a handsome boat pilot into her arms, Pippa is yanked into a deadly plot of her own. A tangle of secrets crashes past into present, and Pippa must uncover clues dating back to Seacrest’s Prohibition days, including a secret Moore himself hid from the world.
Juggling her book-writing guests, small-town intrigues, secret club agendas, and a possibly fatal attraction, Pippa must sort fact from fiction to know who to trust before a desperate killer claims a final revenge nearly a century in the making.
This book was different than I expected. I have listened to quite some cozy mysteries, and that made me expect something else. This is not the typical cozy mystery. The setting is a coastal village, and the main character is a girl working on a bed & breakfast whose unique clientele are writers. Although it seemed a bit unrealistic that a B&B could survive solely on hosting authors, it was an original and interesting setting.
What failed for me here was character development. Even the main characters were one-dimensional and cliches, which made me care nothing for them. The dialogs felt forced at times, and the secondary characters felt totally interchangeable.
I was unable to feel the tension and urgency of the mystery. Usually when listening to cozy mysteries, I’m on the edge of my seat looking forward to what’s next. This didn’t happen here for me, and I also missed the duality between legitime and ilegitime investigation.
There was prescindible romance, as in any cozy mystery, which I don’t generally care for, but this time I even cared less due to the poor character development.
Amina Cee’s narration was quite good, but some of the characters sounded exactly the same. I think it was a difficult one to narrate, since the characters had nothing remarkable to make them different from others. Cee’s did great transmitting the character’s emotions’ though, and I think it was a good narration in general terms.
I received a copy of this book in audio format from the author in exchange for an honest review.| Story (Plot) |
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My name is Elena. Since I was a little child I loved science fiction and fantasy, and I can’t resist a good novel. In 2015, while wait I started to listen to audiobooks and I discovered the pleasure in being able to read while doing my daily tasks, so there’s always an audiobook playing on my phone. If you see me with my Bluetooth headphones on, please be gentle, I get easily startled.
I live with my boyfriend, which I met during my six-year stay in Belgium, four cockatiels, eight lovebirds, and a hamster in Madrid, Spain; and I like to spend my free time knitting and sewing while listening to audiobooks.
