Annoyed by main character

I enjoyed the narration. But I found Emily an annoying character. Judgemental and lacking in any compassion for the victim. I understand her meddling helped solve the case, but why on earth did the police allow her to get so involved with in the first place.

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OK but too religious

the mystery is not too bad but too preachy. almost feel like soft Christian propaganda.

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Not aging well, ok if you like this sort of thing

Let’s see, the half Russian girl has blonde hair and is called Svetlana - such a large country with so many names but no, Svetlana. The girlfriend of the half brother is Asian, which part of Asia? No idea, could be Thai, could be Japanese, Chinese, Korean…a whole host of countries, apparently apparently it doesn’t matter, and she looks delicate (but lively). At chapter 4 we’ve met at least two sexual predators, the female one is an atheist who considers religious icons to be pieces of beautiful artwork not interfaces with Divinity (how terribly evil of her, just to double down on the stereotype).

And if you don’t come from a religious country like the USA you might find the assumption of Christianity a bit in your face.

At Chapter four nothing has happened yet, except that the evil female atheist predator has shown her interest in a sullen student and his girlfriend (Svetlana, who moves like a dancer, and wants to be a ballerina…because of course her mother was a Russian ballerina (?!?!), but her father wants her to be a lawyer) shares the same brand of religion as the main character and is blonde (Medieval European princess needing rescuing vibes crossed with angels? All the princesses were blonde anyway) and has asked the main character for help.

Way too many stereotypes for me. Too much assumption of Christianity as being THE WAY well of course. But it may be fine for you - the main character does not have email, so it must be relatively old, no university professor would be able to get away with that from some time ago.

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Good in parts

overall pretty good for cozy crime
the constant reference to God and faith became tiresome

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Good story - too much religion

I enjoy this author and the who dunnit part is the story was good. The characters are well drawn and engaging and it is well written. But! And it is a big but. It is preachy, I get that the main character (and I expect the author) is a believer but to relate pretty well all of hers thoughts back her religion is annoying.

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similar to others

a mixture of romance and murder.... very easy to listen to. each story is self-contained and formulated.

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Light entertainment

Story could be sharper, at times just too fantastic. Very light entertainment, increased speed of delivery, which helped.

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Google-happy author??

Apart from really clique characters, badly written dialogue, a lack of plot and a myriad of other faults I’d have to say the constant poking about religion - and how god is real and we should all believe in him/it/her - felt like at every turn I was trying to be converted and not subtly! This book pretends to be something it’s not, in that it wanted to be literature (name dropping Dostoyevsky though the research behind this all being google based) and it wanted to be intelligent (see research), and I’d have had more time for the author if the protagonist spent her time actually writing her book rather than doing anything but. The exchanges between characters about their knowledge of Dostoyevsky were funny, though they’d have been better off comparing on Spot The Dog or Topsy and Tim? You can tell the author has read (recently?) Jane Austen though (or watched a movie), her nod to literature! Altogether a thoroughly laughable-whilst-not-being-amusing waste of time.

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Too much God

This is a reasonably satisfying detective story. Spoiled for me by the authors’ constantly present religious agenda. It is rather insulting that those without theist beliefs are deemed to be incapable of ethical behaviour.

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Simplistic

Not a rewarding read/listen I’m afraid, I won’t be listening to more by this author

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