Firday, as part of the WOW Blog Tours, I’m having a quick visit from Gayle Trent a.k.a Amanda Lee. A spy? No, actually an author who writes mysteries under two names. As Gayle Trent she writes the Daphne Martin Cake Decorating Series and as Amanda Lee she launched her new series The Seven Year Stitch on August 3. Stop back Friday for Amanda/Gayle’s interview for the 5Ws and a giveaway of her book The Quick and the Thread.
The Quick and the Thread: An Embroidery Mystery
Author: Amanda Lee
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Signet(August 3, 2010)
Synposis:
Set in the Oregon coast, The Seven Year Stitch series begins with The Quick and the Thread. In the first book Marcy Singer’s excitement about opening her own embroidery shop turns to horror when she discovers the body of the shop’s previous owner. Does someone want Marcy’s shop to fail? Frame her for the murder? Or maybe it isn’t anything personal–maybe it’s just murder! Marcy sets out to discover who brought murder to her new town.
Review:
Marcy Singer is a character you can fall in love simply because she’s so real. She talks to herself, she fights with her best friend over stupid things, she hides things from her mother. I’m worried that Amanda Lee had cameras set up in my house to get ideas for Marcy Singer! Marcy is also authentic when she proves over and over again that she just doesn’t know what’s going on. There are no miraculous flashes of inspiration, no knowledge of little known facts, and just one or two coincidences. She just muddles along, picking up a clue here and there. For a while it seems that the more she learns the less likely she’ll be to figure out who the murderer is. And in a small town where everyone is connected and Marcy is the outsider, soon the only one she can trust is her dog Angus.
This is a great mystery because the reader(at least this reader)starts to get a feel for what might have happened but…you can’t quite wrap your head around it. Amanda Lee gives you just enough clues to whet your appetite but not enough that you’re saying, “Of course, Mr. X did it!” She also remembers that solving the crime is about means, motive, opportunity. By giving just about everyone in town the identical means and motive she makes it even more fun to disentangle the threads that lead to the one person who decided to deal their enemy a fatal blow.
Note: If you aren’t an embroiderer(I’m not)just wanted to let you know that embroidery doesn’t play a key role in the murder or its solving. It’s just mentioned as Marcy’s career and hobby.