A Grave Search (Bodies of Evidence) - We...

Julie found dead bodies with divining rods. She had been doing this since she was a child. Now Julie has started a business called Divine Reunions. Then a broken hearted mother goes to Julie to find her daughter. The woman had paid the demanded ransom but had never got her daughter back.  The prime suspect was the woman’s boyfriend Rob who was also never seen again. But Julie is very hesitant to take the job as she would have to go back to her hometown where she has a lot of  bad memories. Julie’s grandmother had been very abusive to her. Julie’s inheritance allowed her to buy some property to settle down on. To make new friends and stay away from her triggers.  Julie now saw a therapist and was sober but her past had done a lot to Julie. Julie was seeing Garrett who was an FBI agent and twenty years older but both are broken souls trying to heal. Julie feels she should look for the girl and takes the job. Garrett will help her. As Julie investigates she uncovers dark secrets and she will have to rethink what she knows of  her past . But someone is now targeting Julie as both her house and car have been broken  into.  When working for a client the body of  a school friend turns up. Julie does have to use other detective’s clues to help her with  her work. Julie doesn’t just stop at finding the body she is compelled to solve the crime.

I loved this book . It was well written and had a good plot and pace that I liked a lot. I loved Julie and Garrett together the age difference didn’t matter. I liked Julie’s independence. I also loved Wookie her dog. I loved Julie’s determination. I would advise you to read the first book in the series first before this one. I felt like I was right there with Julie. I liked the introduction of  a different gift in this book. I would like to find out more about Julie and her boyfriend. I loved that Julie was working on herself and making progress in her life. I also loved how Garrett is protective of  Julie. I loved the characters and the ins and outs of this book and I highly recommend

Jen is a barista with two big secrets. First, the homeless guy who keeps coming by the cafe where she works and who she keeps giving day-old baked goods to is really her paranoid schizophrenic father. And second, she has an ability known as automatic writing – someone or something writes messages to her via her left hand. Her latest message: “Dear Jen, Arthur is screwing Misty.” Arthur is Jen's cop boyfriend, and Misty is Jen's half-sister and nemesis.

Jen dumps Arthur after confirming that he did, in fact, sleep with Misty. Then she decides to get back at Misty with some dog poop. It's a spur of the moment thing, and it isn't until after she lobs the poop into Misty's apartment that she realizes that Misty is lying dead on the floor, her throat slashed.

As my description indicates, Jen isn't the most mature person ever. I really, really didn't like her. It was more than just the dog poop incident – it was nearly everything about her and the way she interacted with the world.

After she read the message to herself about Arthur cheating on her with Misty, she went to Arthur, took his loaded gun, and pointed it at his crotch while she interrogated him. I get that she was angry, but what sane person does that? Later on, they both demonstrated their incredible grossness and stupidity by sleeping with each other after Jen, in a bout of fear and worry that her dad might have been involved in Misty's death, called Arthur. Who sleeps with a person who recently pointed a loaded gun at your crotch? Who sleeps with a person who made you so angry that you pointed a loaded gun at them? Why did these characters have to be so awful?

I also didn't like the way Jen bashed the cafe's part-timers for being skinny. Her comment to one of them: “Grab a muffin or three. Put some meat on your bones before you cut someone.” (51) And no, she didn't mean it in a snarky friendly way – she didn't even consider the part-timers worth the effort of remembering their names. Even Mitch, her coworker, thought her treatment of the part-timers was a bit much.

Speaking of Mitch, I spent a good chunk of the book wondering if he was going to be Jen's obligatory love interest. On the one hand, books like this often have a love interest, and he seemed like the most likely one. He was good-looking and willing to let Jen cry on his shoulder if she needed to. On the other hand, I disliked Jen enough that I couldn't help but think that Mitch was too good for her. He was even a better barista than she was. His only failings were that he teased her for taking baked goods to the homeless guy near the cafe (he didn't know the man was Jen's father, but that still didn't excuse the teasing) and that learning about Jen's automatic writing freaked him out. The relationship between him and Jen petered out before it even began. I'm not sure why the author bothered, unless there are plans to turn this into a series.

The most appealing thing about this book was the mystery. I genuinely had trouble figuring out who the killer might be, although I had suspicions that turned out to be correct. The killer's efforts to cover their tracks were very messy and unfocused. The aspects that initially caught my attention, the coffee shop stuff and the automatic writing, were so-so at best. Like I said, Mitch was a better barista than Jen was. Also, Jen's automatic writing only cropped up a few times. It was briefly mentioned that the spirit that spoke through Jen was probably someone close to her, but nothing ever came of that – another indication that this might become the first book in a series.

However, even if a second book gets published, I'm not planning on reading it. Grounds to Kill already gave me more of Jen than I really wanted. I'd rather not subject myself to more.

(Original review, including read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

It's kind of fun to play "guess the love interest." (I have no idea if this book is going to have a love interest, but so many of them do.) At the moment, there are three possibilities.

First, Jen's ex-boyfriend. He's a good-looking cop and he's the only guy Jen has had sex with during the course of the story, but he also cheated on Jen with her half-sister, so he's probably out.

Second, Jen's coworker. He's hot, willing to let her cry on his shoulder, and he and Jen have had sex before, but she decided he wasn't really interested in more than that.

Third, there's the private investigator. He and Jen have a past - he humiliated her in high school by announcing in public that he'd slept with the school's last three virgins, one of whom was her. Now, years later, he has apologized for this and is attempting to help her with recent events (a murder, a burglary, etc.). He hasn't really been around much yet.

Jen's coworker seems like the most likely option. He seems too nice for her though, so I kind of hope that he ends up with one of the cafe's part-timers.

I try to do one book in each format at a time, not counting library books. I figured a quirky cozy mystery would be a good choice for my next e-book. Now I'm not so sure. Why did I buy this? If I could go back in time, I'd tell the me of the past to pass this one by.

It's first person POV. So far the main character has told readers that her mentally ill father, who can't properly feed himself and who barely responds to her presence, has chosen to be homeless. He doesn't seem to me like he has the ability to choose to do much of anything. Also, her first response upon learning, via her psychic powers, that her cop boyfriend was cheating on her was to pull out his loaded gun and point it at his crotch. I get that she's mad, but holy crap.

Dating Can Be Deadly -- Wendy Roberts

DNF at Chapter 4. I set it aside thinking that maybe I'll have the motivation to pick it back up and finish it later, but with so many other books I actually WANT to read, I can't be effed to bother with this book. I really enjoyed Wendy Roberts' first Ghost Duster Mystery book, so I might head back in that direction at a later time.

Otherwise, so far I'd been finding Dating Can Be Deadly kind of amateurish in writing. The characters are unlikable and Tabitha got on my nerves almost immediately. Maybe I'll come back to this book some other time, but that's not a certainty.

I don't think I've ever dropped a book this quickly though...