Snowed In with Murder

January 1, 2017
A woman who's returned home to win back her ex finds herself snowed in on an island with a rich family whose members seem intent on destroying each other.When Erica Bloom returns to visit her childhood home in little Otter Lake, New Hampshire, her goal is to remind her most recent ex, Sheriff Grady Forrester, why he fell for her in the first place. Just because she refused to move from her home in Chicago back to Otter Lake was no excuse for him to dump her via text. Erica has all the requisites for wooing: a big bottle of red wine and a romantic night for two planned at her mother Summer's hippie yet charming retreat center, Earth, Moon, and Stars, which occupies its own secluded island. When Erica sees Grady, however, it's apparent that it may take more than a talk to convince him, and when she shows up at the retreat, Summer is nowhere to be found. Instead, a kooky family along with a spare film crew appears to have rented the retreat. Erica can't figure out what's going on--nor will readers deprived of expository information needed to set up the basic plot--but it appears that the patriarch, Rayner Boatright, has brought his family to the retreat as part of a reality show called Rich Bitches. Rayner announces to the family that one of them may be trying to kill him to get their inheritance sooner. Trapped on the island with a blizzard fast approaching, Erica tries to keep everyone safe, a task that seems impossible without the help of trained professionals. Wallace (Pumpkin Picking with Murder, 2016, etc.) tries to strike her usual playful tone, but this entry comes across as juvenile and disorganized.

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February 1, 2017

In Wallace's third Otter Lake installment (after Pumpkin Picking with Murder), family and romance come first--even in a snowstorm. Erica Bloom returns to New Hampshire to try things again with Sheriff Grady Forrester at her hippie mom's island retreat. Despite an approaching blizzard, Erica discovers her mother has rented out the retreat to the odious Boatright brood, who are there to take part in what surely will not be one of America's great television shows: Rich Bitches. An approaching Nor'easter and quality television are ingredients for murder, of course, and soon Mr. Boatright is no more, after perhaps prophetically announcing that one of his family members would kill him to get their hands on inheritance money sooner rather than later. Erica, with Sheriff Grady in tow, races to find the killer before he--or she--strikes again. VERDICT Despite its always pleasant lakeside setting, this work unfortunately fails to come together, with disparate story elements and side characters who seem to blow in and out of the narrative as quickly as the winter's biting wind.

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