[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Kensington in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
Kelly is back in her home town, Lucky Cove, following the death of her grandmother. Kelly’s grandmother left her a consignment shop. The timing is actually pretty perfect as Kelly just lost her New York fashion job and needed somewhere to land. But Kelly’s uncle is pressuring her to sell the place, and her one employee is resistant to any changes Kelly wants to make in the store.
And then there is the “murder dress.” A local “psychic” comes into the store, tries on a little black dress, and has a vision of murder. Before Kelly can get a handle on things, the story drives customers away, and she becomes the suspect in a different murder.
Kelly is determined to get to the truth before someone else is killed or her grandmother’s business is ruined. But a fashion buyer might not be well equipped to find a murderer, no matter how many Nancy Drew books she read as a kid.
Review
I enjoyed the mystery in this one! The solution was a nice surprise, and the whole case kept me guessing. While there is a supposed psychic in this as well as an impromptu seance that Kelly disbands rather quickly, there isn’t a “paranormal” vibe in the story. It’s a fairly straightforward cozy mystery.
The characters developed slowly for me. There’s a lot of history with some of them from long before this particular story, but I didn’t feel like it was thoroughly explained. It didn’t impact the mystery, but considering the impact of the event on the whole town, I wanted the full scoop. Supposedly the “whole town” blamed Kelly for an accident in her youth. But the details on how they determined Kelly was “at fault” by NOT being there and why some characters even had a stake in the event wasn’t clear. And then there wasn’t a lot shown in the story to back up this idea that the “whole town” blamed Kelly. It was just stated a lot.
I was happy to see some of the secondary characters call Kelly out on her rescuing behavior and poor boundaries as this case developed. She didn’t know any of the folks involved in the case, but she is all in on protecting someone who seems to only cause her trouble. Kelly’s friends are very forgiving even after calling her out. I hope in future books she’ll be a little more careful. This was another part of the story that diminished some of my reading enjoyment. Boundaries are a big deal.
I’ll stick with this series at least through another book to see how the story and characters develop, especially since the romance angle was only teased in this book. As I stated earlier, the mystery itself was great!