DARYNDA
JONES
Stats
for my copy:
Kindle edition, St. Martin's Press, expected publication date 4/7/20.
How
acquired:
NetGalley.
(For the Goodreads synopsis, scroll to the bottom of this post.)
My
thoughts: While
I hadn't read Ms. Jones before, I am very aware of her popular
Charley Davidson series, and even have books one and twelve of that
series in my TBR. So when an email showed up from Netgalley about
this book, the first in a new series, being available, I jumped on
it.
It's
one of those books that is filled with quirky characters and
outlandish situations. Starting with Sunshine becoming the sheriff of
her home town after winning an election that she had not even
entered. Her friend and coworker, Quincy, tells her she killed it at
a the debate. How...? Sunshine never does find out how her parents
managed to get her elected behind her back, but she is still glad of
the opportunity to move back to her home town, if only to investigate
her own abduction when she was seventeen, of which she has very
little memory, and the perpetrator was never caught.
Much
of the dialogue was quite amusing, with quips being tossed back and
forth between the characters like a volleyball, while Sunshine and
her deputies race against the clock to find a missing teenager who
had premonitions of her own abduction and murder for years. I
sometimes got a little confused as something would come up from Sun's
past. For instance, one minute her childhood rival and bully Hailey
is snarling insults at her, and the next they're hugging in a coffee
shop storeroom, followed by a short info dump to explain their
situation, although I'm still not completely clear on why the two
women have to pretend to hate each other when anyone else is around.
Plus there was just soooo much going on, like dozens of tiny little
side plots. Despite that, I like the author's writing and the story
was engaging for the most part. And when Sunshine and her daughter
finally had a heart to heart, no more secrets, talk about what
happened to Sunshine when she was seventeen, I cried right along with
them.
While
Sunshine is apparently surrounded by handsome burly men, Levi of
course stood out from the others. An enigma, who I'm sure we'll learn
more about as the series progresses. I have some theories about him,
and I loved the conversation between them when she went to his house
to thank him for something and ended up standing beside his bed
interrupting his nap to talk to him.
If
this review comes across as my feeling a bit ambivalent about the
book, I guess I am a little, but the bottom line is I did get quite
caught up and raced through the last quarter or so, and I look
forward to the next book. And definitely need to get a start on the
Charley Davidson books.
Goodreads
synopsis: Del
Sol, New Mexico is known for three things: its
fry-an-egg-on-the-cement summers, its strong cups of coffee—and a
nationwide manhunt? Del Sol native Sunshine Vicram has returned to
town as the elected sheriff—an election her adorably meddlesome
parents entered her in—and she expects her biggest crime wave to
involve an elderly flasher named Doug. But a teenage girl is missing,
a kidnapper is on the loose, and all of it's reminding Sunny why she
left Del Sol in the first place. Add to that trouble at her
daughter’s new school and a kidnapped prized rooster named Puff
Daddy, and Sunshine has her hands full.
Enter sexy almost-old-flame Levi Ravinder and a hunky US Marshall, both elevens on a scale of one to blazing inferno, and the normally savvy sheriff is quickly in over her head. Now it’s up to Sunshine to juggle a few good hunky men, a not-so-nice kidnapping miscreant, and Doug the ever-pesky flasher. And they said coming home would be drama-free.
Enter sexy almost-old-flame Levi Ravinder and a hunky US Marshall, both elevens on a scale of one to blazing inferno, and the normally savvy sheriff is quickly in over her head. Now it’s up to Sunshine to juggle a few good hunky men, a not-so-nice kidnapping miscreant, and Doug the ever-pesky flasher. And they said coming home would be drama-free.
