Book Review: The Brim Reaper

Book: The Brim Reaper (Style and Error Mystery book #3) by Diane Vallere

Source: Borrowed from NetGalley for an honest review

Expected Release Date: December 17th

Rating: 2 stars

Review:

I thought this was okay. This started out so good but started to fizzle along the way. I thought main character Samantha Kidd was pretty cool. She was smart, fashionable, loved old movies and was addicted to Netflix. Besides being unemployed she seemed like she had a good handle on her life.

But as I continued to read, I realized Samantha was nothing more than an indecisive flake. She kept saying she was looking for a job but wavered on the decision to help her friend Eddie Adams with an up and coming fashion exhibit. However, not sure the exhibit would continue after Dirk Engle the curator for the exhibit was found murdered, she asked her boyfriend Nick Taylor, a shoe designer for the job of showroom manager for his store.

However, before Sam took the job she made a promise to Nick that she was not to going to get involved with the investigation. And what did she do, she got involved with the investigation. I don't even understand why she made that promise when she wasn't going to keep it. The promise felt like something that was used to add tension to the story.

She claimed the job as the showroom manager was important to her but she barely made it to work on time let alone really do any work. She was too fixated on trying to solve the mystery, which she's pretty good at. However, it would have been nice is she didn't flake out on the job especially since she needed the money and she claimed she was a professional. In my opinion, Sam didn't really care about either fashion related jobs, perhaps she should just become a fashionable private investigator, sense it doesn't seem like a continued career in fashion really mattered much to her anymore and she's actually a pretty good mystery solver.

Another flakey example was she had a boyfriend but suggested they take a break (from Monday to Friday) to keep their work professional but then she got jealous when Nick was meeting with another designer. Their relationship got a little rocky once Nick realized Sam was investigating the murder and what's going on over at the museum. He went into overprotective mold wanting her to quit helping Eddie with investigating the murder. Not liking that, she stormed out making their rocky relationship even rockier. This relationship also felt like it was created just to give the story some tension.

To add to this was the feeling of a love triangle I was getting from the story with Samantha seeming to be interested in Dante (whom she met in the previous book) as well. I could understand her flirting with this guy after she broke up with Nick but not while they were still supposed to be together. Not to mention I got a stalkerish vibe from Dante and that's not including the fact that his sister asked him to follow Sam around to gather information. He was also the typical mysterious bad boy type.

Her rocky relationship with Nick didn't do anything for this story nor the constant flirty feelings for bad boy (stalker) Dante.

I really thought I was going to like this, it was fast paced but I just couldn't seem to connect with the story or characters. I found myself not caring about the mystery, which wasn't that compelling. I was hoping the story would pick back up again but it didn't. Although this is the first book I've read from this series, it's written in a way that you don't necessarily have to had to read the previous books. The writing was smart and witty but I just wasn't finding the story interesting.

Mind you this is just my opinion and you should definitely read the book for yourself, to form your own opinion. I've checked out reviews for the author's other books and they seem to get pretty good reviews. So, perhaps this book just wasn't for me.