Greed and intrigue ruled the day in this mystery thriller, where Emmaline Beard, found herself at odds with the Law. She and her friends Byrd and Esther tried to solve the murder, only to find herself in deeper waters. An interesting and entertaining read.

I chose this book because I enjoy a good read. I am not particularly fussy about which kind of book I am reading; but I tend to avoid Young Adult romances. And apperently, I also avoid reading the first book in a series as well, since this one has been just another one of the many books I failed to notice were having previous parts already.
The good thing about this book, though - you don't neccessarily need to know its predecessor to understand what is happening.

This book was intruiging me from the beginning. The title already woke my interest and in combination with the cover, I just had to apply for reading spot. I love it when the cover isn't overloaded and you can actually see a relation between the cover and the title.
At first I thought I had stumbled into a classical Teenage-Romance-Novel which just happened to have thriller elements. At first, I was very disappointed with that book.
But the more I read on, the more I found myself fascinated. Not neccessarily by the plot or the characters, since there were quite a lot of different characters and multiple POVs without a glossar at the end where the characters were introduced. But maybe that was because the characters were compleatly new to me, not having read the previous book.
The only reason I kept reading this book - since the plot felt pretty staged and forced to me and the only character I thought would be of interest dissappeared into nothing after one short POV-scene and a couple of side-mentions of no great importance - was the writing. I really enjoyed the way this book was written - it had an awesome red herring, a cleverly conceled missunderstanding and a witty portion of well placed humour. It was enjoyable to read and like I said, I really loved the author's little jokes and banter between the characters, as well as the writing style.
I am not quite sure whether I'd recommed this book or not. While I enjoyed it on the matters of wordbuilding and speech, I wasn't too fond of the plot which fell a bit flat and predictable to me and the characters which was maily because I couldn't quite get a grasp on them or their relationship towards each other. Would it be clearer to me had I readd the first book? I can't say.
However, since I loved the cover and the style in which the book was written, I am going to give this book a solid three-star rating. It was by no means a bad book, but I don't think I will pick it up to read a second time.

I was given a free copy by the publishers and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was well-written, with interesting characters and a really good storyline. I could feel Louisiana's humidity as I read the descriptions of the climate. Wish we were told why the one character was chosen to send the pearls to - left me wondering.

This book could not hold my attention , I did not like how it switched from a mysterious sea venture which could have been mysterious and intriguing , to a small town mystery murder ... not for me

Even if the characters are interesting the story didn't keep my attention and fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

A young woman, unfortunate in love, sets in motion a chain of events culminating in two murders, a grand theft, and the pursuit of a killer in a small town. The style is easy to read. There is subtle humor. Also the plot kept me guessing until the very end.
I received this book from Net galley in return for an honest review.

There is a plot here, and the story is readable if you must. It's not often a book starts this badly, with a young woman doing incredibly stupid things. Who wants to read about that? The rest of the book, to me, is mostly naive nonsense.

This book was thoroughly enjoyable. It has a well written storyline and is wonderfully descriptive and the characters were interesting. This is the first book by this author I have read and I definitely recommend it.