Last book for Halloween bingo. Not much to say except that this book ended up aggravating me the whole time. The lead in the book, Maura, is nasty to pretty much everyone and sits around judging how small town the village of Leap is and how one of the villagers, a teenager named Rose, needs to do more with her life instead of working in a pub. Throw in a mystery of a young man who seems out to get Maura for no good reason and a body found in a bog, I was just ready to be done with this one. The book felt endless after a while and reading about cleaning, clothes, tea making, and other things in this book just made the overall flow painful. This is the first book in a series I have no intention of continuing. 

"Buried in a Bog" follows 25 year old Maura Donovan who returns to Ireland following the wish of her recently deceased grandmother. Maura was born and raised in Boston and after her grandmother's passing realizes she doesn't have anything going on in her own life. She plans on traveling to the village of Leap for just a week to honor her grandmother and return home. Instead, Maura ends up meeting a lot of people who tell her stories of her grandmother, her grandfather, and even her deceased father. She starts working in a local pub and wonders if she should stay. If that's not enough a dead body is found in a bog that may have some connections to those who live nearby. On top of that a mysterious young man seems hellbent on stalking and trying to scare Maura for some reason unknown to her.

So Maura was a piece of work. She herself didn't go to college and is working at bars in Boston, but she sure had time enough to look down upon everyone she meets. She doesn't like the fact that a young man near her age, Mick, is just working at the pub. She wonders why he hasn't moved away and even when he tells her he is there for his grandmother and to keep an eye on her she acts like people don't sometimes delays things to take care of elderly relatives. Maura has the same opinion about a teenager named Rose who has gotten her Leaving Certificate but has no interest in moving away and doing anything else. The character started to put my nose out of joint but it got worse when there's a throwaway line that Maura has about at least the Irish are better than how Americans act since they (Americans) just expect jobs to be given to them by the government along with money.

Moving on. Can't say much about the other characters because except for two of them, Maura is sitting around judging everyone. When she starts getting stalked how she talks to the police in Leap would have had her cursed out if she was a woman of color.

The writing was painful after a while. Connolly stays focused too much on describing every freaking thing that is happening and what Maura is eating, smelling, seeing. Everything became tedious after a while. Also she keeps going on and on about how she needs to get clothes and or wash the clothes she brought for a really long time. I think that's what I should have called the title of this review, "Everything Goes On For A Really Long Time." The flow was awful.

The setting of Leap could have worked if I didn't want to bludgeon the lead. 

The ending was a big whatever to me. It made zero freaking sense, but it's a way to keep the character there for the series. This is the second cozy mystery series of Connolly I have read and I swear she must say to herself that cozy mysteries equal unlikable female character cause she did the same thing in her Orchard series which caused me to stop reading that one after a while too. 

Good grief the main character Maura sucks. Her looking down her nose at a young girl working in a pub when it's apparent she doesn't have a degree, zero money, and no job to return to in Boston. First book in the series has Maura off to Ireland to fulfill her late grandmother's wish for her to say a prayer to her in a church where she grew up, Maura is in the village of Leap. A body in a bog has been found so don't know how or when Maura will get tied up in the mystery of things. 

This would've easily been a 5 star book if not for 2 things:  endless repetition of the story so far every couple of pages and the ridiculous rescue plot.  

This series has always had a lot of internal dialogue to it, but it just seemed to make this book drag.  It added nothing to the story and felt like filler.  In fact, I skipped 2 or 3 chapters in the middle because the story just wasn't moving along.

The plot to rescue the missing farmer nearly made me stop reading the book.  Seriously? As a plot device, it stinks.  Just implausible and ridiculous.  

Overall, not a terrible book, but this series definitely needs to move a few plot lines forward (can we do away with the the whole Mick/Sean/Clueless Maura thing now, please??)

This is the second book in the series, and this book was even better than the first. I identify in a lot of ways with Maura and her thought processes, so I find her to be a believable and likeable character. I loved the date with Sean, I could put myself in the same situation easily.

The plot with this one was a little convoluted; a gardener at an estate is murdered at the same time a brash New Yorker shows up looking for a valuable painting that could be at the estate. I got the feeling that the plot was stretched out a little too much (it could've been solved in half the amount of time) but I enjoy the setting and the characters so much, I didn't really mind. 

Seriously, though, if Maura doesn't punch Jimmy in the mouth soon, I'll go over there and do it for her.

I am late coming into the County Cork Mystery series, but I'm so happy to have read AN EARLY WEEK. To me this book just serves to prove that author Sheila Connolly is a wonderful writer. This series is so different than her Museum Mysteries and Orchard Mystery series, both of which I love. 

It's very clear Ms. Connolly is not only knowledgeable of Ireland, but indeed proud of her Irish connection. It truly comes across in her delightful characters and settings and had me captivated.

This was a good, solid mystery that kept me guessing until the exciting end when all was finally made clear. 

While this was my first trip to County Cork, it most certainly will not be my last.