Book Review: Backpack and a Red Dress

Book Review:  Backpack and a Red Dress by Maddie Jane

Don’t judge a book by its cover… Backpack and a Red Dress has a gorgeous cover which, along with that excellent title, evokes thoughts of a heroine escaping the big city and finding herself and her love whilst travelling in a red dress that holds some sort of significance. Unfortunately, neither the cover nor the title (nor my wild imaginings prompted by them) reflects the reality of the book and its plot.

Cally, our heroine, does travel from New Zealand to England, this is true, but any red dress she might have squashed into her backpack doesn’t play a huge role. The brief mention of these two items happens in the opening scene where Cally thinks about how she should have packed a coat when she realises how cold she is while strutting down the street, heading for a confrontation with the hero in an office building. You’ll find this exact same scene in one of my many unfinished romances I wrote when I was about 18, or in any number of published romances.

And that’s my biggest issue with Backpack and a Red Dress. Far from being the ‘fresh contemporary romance’ as stated on the blurb, it’s the same old, same old. I literally could find the rest of the plot in at least 100 other Mills & Boons/Harlequin romances circa 1987 when I binge read them under the covers as a teenager. Nearly every cliche other than the hero being Greek and the heroine being a virgin is represented.

Maddie Jane can undoubtedly write. There were many lovely turns of phrase that made me nod with approval. She also adeptly created chemistry between the leads, and her descriptions of their physical intimacy is quite nice (although, again, like an 80s M&B she does fade to black a little too much, I believe) but she needs to produce something much more unique, with realistic conflict and backgrounds for the characters suitable for the 21st century than this.

Escape Publishing burst onto the scene a couple of years ago with such promising modern quirky reads. They need to stop playing it safe and leave this sort of plot to their parent company.

2 1/2 out of 5

 

Book Review: Front Page News

Book Review:  Front Page News by Katie Rowney

Stacey is a newspaper reporter in the tiny country (and fictional) Queensland town of Toomey. She spends her time reporting on council meetings and bowls’ tournaments until suddenly a body is found in such a state that it’s fairly obvious a murder has taken place. So, of course, Stacey begins to investigate. Soon, the body count rises, as does the suspect list, and Stacey’s chances of becoming the next victim.

If there’s one thing that has happened since the introduction of ebooks, it’s the boost in popularity of the cosy mystery genre. I can honestly say the genre wasn’t even on my radar before the purchase of my ereader. And whilst I will not class them as literature, I (and many many others) do find them entertaining.

They all follow a pretty standard formula. Often written in the first person, with a female protagonist who’s a ‘quirky’ character, they’re set in a small town, and the authors spice up their plots with the use of ‘colourful’ supporting characters.

Front Page News isn’t any different. This meant I needed to ignore certain unbelievable aspects of the plot at times. One thing in particular being the lack of any outside/city police task force and/or media interest in the case. (Serial murder cases are not exactly commonplace in Australia and would definitely draw attention no matter how isolated the town.)

As there are so many cosy mysteries out there, authors usually try to have one thing in their books that makes them unique from all the others on the market. Magic, ghosts, talking cats (there’s always an obligatory cat), 1920s aristocrats etc etc. In this case, the thing that sets it apart is the Australian setting and language.

I’ve lived in a couple of extremely small outback Queensland towns (one’s population was merely 3000 and it was approximately 10 hours drive to the first big city) and the descriptions of the social activities of the town portrayed here were spot on. Balls and race days and sporting events were the highlights on everyone’s calendar.

The language and style of the characters also is authentically Aussie. (Except for this one insane section where the writer — or perhaps the editor??? — slips into American spelling and speech patterns. It was, thankfully, only brief.)

Stacey’s age grated a little. She was extremely confident for a 21 year old. Then again, her youth worked for the reason she was in Toomey in the first place, so… *shrug*

The identity of the murderer was maybe a little too obvious and their reasons a little too cliched. I hope in future ‘Toomey Times’ books we get a little more as a motive. However, there was one slight twist that I thought was clever (spoiler! I’ll just say it had to do with the town’s urban myth).

The romance was subtle. Perhaps a little too subtle at times for my liking, but I think most readers of this genre aren’t looking for any erotic sex scenes anyway.

All in all I’d recommend this book to readers who are looking for an authentic Aussie cosy mystery.

4 out of 5

PS I must mention the cover. I don’t think it suits the book at all and if I was advising the publishers, I would seriously recommend changing it for later editions. This book is completely a cosy mystery, and this cover makes me believe it’s a romance.