Murder Wears Mittens by Sally Goldenbaum
Murder Wears Mittens by Sally Goldenbaum
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Cass Halloran has returned to the laundromat to retrieve her lobster nets from the dryer when she finds someone has decided to dry some children’s close in her load. Before she knows it a young boy enters the laundry to retrieve the clothes and Cass becomes concerned with why he is alone. Cass can’t help but continue to worry and when she shares the encounter with the other Seaside Knitters the ladies decide to check on the boy.
When the group finds the boy along with his sister alone they do their best to reunite the children with their mother and think their job is done with the good deed. But then the body of Dolores Cardozo, a local recluse, is discovered and not only the mother of the children but even one of their own seem to have ties to Dolores so the group find themselves trying to uncover a murderer.
Opening up Murder Wears Mittens I became concerned when the first thing I see is a long list of characters that would be included letting the reader know who was who. I always cringe when I see something of this nature thinking the story should introduce me to whoever is in the book and get to know them so if this is needed then perhaps I won’t enjoy the book. However, in this case it seems that these characters have been around for quite a while for this author with eleven other books in the A Seaside Knitters Mystery series. I was under the impression when I picked this one up that it was a brand new series, the Seaside Knitters Society, but this wasn’t the case.
My rating on Murder Wears Mittens is basically due to the fact that jumping this far into an ongoing series leaves me feeling that I’ve missed a connection to the characters. The story was an alright cozy read it just didn’t grab me as I would have liked and I believe if maybe I’d been reading and getting to know these characters from the beginning I would have been more connected to them with so many involved in the book. I may even try to eventually go back and read about these ladies from the beginning as it seems like it would be a nice small town cozy if I felt I could get to know them better in earlier reads.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
Carries Book Reviews 
I’ve never had success diving into the middle of a series.😞
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Romance is the only genre that I don’t mind jumping in because the books normally change couples but keep the setting. Something like this it just feels off because you know there’s a history you missed and a lack of character development that would have happened earlier on. I try my best to avoid picking up one in the midst of a series but this one unfortunately was misleading on goodreads. 😦
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I’ve had that happen so often on Goodreads and NetGalley. It’s really aggravating.😒
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Netgalley usually doesn’t mention it at all so I find myself looking them up all the time on Goodreads before I request. Immediately saw this listed as a book 1 so after getting a ways into it I did a double check and found the author had the whole other series under a slightly different name. 😦
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Grr.😣
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I do the same Carrie. I didn’t realize this was a continuation from her other series.
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It was definitely misleading. I kept wondering why there wasn’t some kind of explanation of how the characters met or relationships formed etc so I stopped and did more checking on it. I kind of felt bad rating lower as the author seems to be a solid writer and someone I might have enjoyed if it was a first of a series but I spent a lot of time reading trying to remind myself who was who and figuring out things that would be in a first book.
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