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Camilla Randall Mystery

The Camilla Randall Mysteries 3-in-1 Box Set

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The Camilla Randall Mysteries: Snarky, delicious fun. Bridget Jones meet Miss Marple. Perennially down-and-out socialite Camilla is a magnet for murder, mayhem and Mr. Wrong, but she always solves the mystery in her quirky, but oh-so-polite way. 

The Best Revenge is a prequel to the series, and takes us back to Camilla Randall's teen years, when she first meets Plantagenet Smith--and is accused of murder herself!

Ghostwriters In The Sky fasts forward to a more mature Camilla, hoping to have an easy ride at a writers' conference in California. Needless to say fate has other ideas. When a handsome young writer is found dead in Plantagenet's bed, Camilla must enlist the help of a cross-dressing dominatrix to clear Plant's name.

In Sherwood Ltd. a homeless Camilla lands in Robin Hood country, where some not-so-merry men may be trying to kill her, and of course Camilla once again ends up in the most improbable, but always believable, circumstances.

900 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 20, 2012

23 people are currently reading
75 people want to read

About the author

Anne R. Allen

28 books79 followers
Anne R. Allen is the author of 10 rom-com mysteries published by MWiDP, Kotu Beach Press, and Thalia Press: FOOD OF LOVE, THE LADY OF THE LAKEWOOD DINER, and THE GATSBY GAME (now available in a boxed set BOOMER WOMEN: THREE COMEDIES ABOUT A GENERATION THAT CHANGED THE WORLD), plus the Camilla Randall Mysteries: THE BEST REVENGE, GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY, SHERWOOD, LTD, NO PLACE LIKE HOME, SO MUCH FOR BUCKINGHAM, THE QUEEN OF STAVES, GOOGLING OLD BOYFRIENDS, and CATFISHING IN AMERICA.

She co-authored HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE: A SELF-HELP GUIDE with PAY IT FORWARD author Catherine Ryan Hyde. And Catherine wrote the foreword of her latest guide: THE AUTHOR BLOG: EASY BLOGGING FOR BUSY AUTHORS.

Anne R. Allen's Blog (which she shares with New York Times bestselling author Ruth Harris) was named one of the Best 101 Websites for Writers by Writers Digest.

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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Profile Image for John.
57 reviews18 followers
August 3, 2012
Have to admit it: I only knew author Anne R. Allen through her often-witty and frequently irreverent blog posts. I knew that she wrote novels, but I'm not a follower of that genre known as "chick-lit"... but one should never judge a book by it's cover, or it's title. I enjoyed her blog posts and her viewpoints on everything from social media to her take on the news, along with her comments on reviews and reviewers.

It wasn't until I read How To Be A Writer In The E-Age... And Keep Your E-Sanity! , which Anne co-authored with Catherine Ryan Hyde, that I really began to wonder if these novels that she had written, but I didn't know exactly where to start. A little searching brought me here to The Camilla Randall Mysteries in a 3-in-1 Kindle box set, which seemed to be an ideal place.

As it turned out, it was.

The Camilla Randall Mysteries is made up of three of Ms. Allen's previously published stories, and after an introduction by Saffina Desforges, we are taken to the books broken down in this 827-page Kindle box set as three very large chapters.

The Camilla Randall Mysteries
Anne R. Allen's Ever-witty Triple-Dip

The Best Revenge is where we first encounter protagonist Camilla Randall, who appears in all three of these books. Based in the 1980s, it's also where we're introduced to the author's fast and witty dialogue in this fast-moving romp that takes us from meeting Plantagenet Smith, her gay best friend, to where she's going her best to avoid the lusty Arkansas Chickenburger King (picture a Colonel Sanders type individual here), who has something other than chicken on his mind. We find that debutante "Rosewood girls do not dress like Vestal Virgins in heat" and that our heroine is capable of some pretty wild excursions that take us from coast to coast.

Ghost Writers In the Sky fast forwards to where a more mature Camilla Randall, now a New York etiquette columnist known as the Manners Doctor, accepts an invitation to a Z-list Writers' Conference, thinking that she's going to have an easy ride there. But her life unravels as she deals with a collection of batty writers, tree-hugging protestors, a sharp shooter, an attractive policeman who may be suffering from road rage, a cross-dressing celebrity impersonating transsexual dominatrix, and a dead body in the bedroom. This one is typically fast -paced and hysterically funny.

Sherwood Ltd. takes our heroine Camilla to the England of Robin Hood legend, but Nottingham was never as entertaining as it is with her adventures here. The fashionable, upscale `adult' press, Sherwood Ltd, is seeking for ways to become respectable, and who better to help them than the Manners Doctor? Camilla meets Peter Sherwood, sort of postmodern Robin Hood, and our striving-for-publication author again ends up in the most implausible yet believable circumstances, dealing with a covert smuggling business and a homicidal authoress. This one is an engaging tale, has some adult content, and above all is quite enjoyable.

But it's Anne Allen's humor that jumps out at us, as can be seen especially in Sherwood Ltd. This passage is a perfect example:
"'Yes Peter,' I said. 'I can forgive everything. Except maybe the hair.' It really was awful in that Alan Greene rat tail. 'I think it's time you let your hair down. Release your inner Fabio.' I reached to pull off the elastic that bound his sun-bleached locks. I fluffed his hair around his shoulders, feeling like a 1950s movie hero romancing the mousy librarian. I giggled. He giggled too, then drew me to him in an intense kiss. With lips locked, we sank onto the futon. His hands moved under my blouse. I let them."

You'll have to read Sherwood Ltd to see how this scene plays out.

Yet if I had to make any criticism, it's based on the concept that I've labeled elsewhere that we're in the depths of "The Summer of the Fifty Shades of You-Fill-in-the-Blanks." I'm not comparing The Camilla Randall Mysteries 3-in-1 Box Set to author E.L. James' wildly bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy , as to begin with, Anne Allen's offering here is far better written, and by a long shot. The character of Camilla is intelligent (though sometimes a bit naïve), witty, very articulate, and the range of her mental lexicon has to be in the level of a university professor, at about 15,000+ words, whereas the average college grad is about 6,000+ words.

In comparison and apart from writing at about a ninth-grade level in the Fifty Shades of Grey series, E.L. James' protagonist Anastasia appears to have a vocabulary limited to about 2378 words, give or take about a dozen. The most frequently used of her exclamations seem to be a lot of "Oh, my!" and "holy crap!" throughout the trilogy, along with "My breathing hitched."

But where I do find a similarity, and please don't shoot the messenger on this, is that there seems to be a regular convention that's used in chick lit novels, and that has to do with brand plugs. There are disturbing parallels in both, almost like product placements. In the Fifty Shades series we hear ad nauseam of Christian Grey's Audi, his BlackBerry and Anastasia's iPad, along with all of that Diet Coke, Pinot Grigio and Bollinger. Only a film or TV producer could dream up this much product placement. And yet we find similar name-dropping throughout all three volumes of the Camilla Randall Mysteries, with product placements poking through, like Louis Vuitton luggage, Wonderbra, Birkin bags and more. Here's an example: "I think I squealed when I saw my favorite things: the Stella boots, Alexander McQueen dress, Burberry suit, and Versace undies."

Yet it's Ms. Allen's often-amazing prose that pops up when least expected, with true gems such as this:
"Maybe it was the pimply kid in the Marilyn Manson tee shirt who had insinuated himself into the already overflowing car at Columbus Circle. He'd pressed in to join the three of us who had already staked claims on the center pole. I jabbed the boy in the ribs with an elbow. He grunted an obscenity."

Of the three books in this set, this reader must admit that my favorite was Sherwood Ltd. Author Allen's ability to keep a reader going, really showed up in this tale, going from page to page, waiting for what was to come next. But personally, I dislike such overdone product placement, as I did in in the Fifty Shades Trilogy, and know that as a writer, Ms. Allen can do better, and for that reason I'm knocking off a point for these repeated distractions, even if some of them may be tongue in cheek.

All that being said, Anne Allen had me laughing unexpectedly and sometimes out loud with her wonderful crafting of her words into sentences that became alive and three dimensional throughout these stories. Bottom line is that this is a solid 4-star set of books that are real keepers, and I may have to go to her book The Gatsby Game next.

8/2/2012

Note: this review appeared earlier on Amazon.com in a revised form.

Anne R. Allen The Camilla Randall Mysteries
Profile Image for Cindy.
2,010 reviews39 followers
May 22, 2018
I'm giving up. I just finished chapter 10 out of 37 chapters. I hate every character in this book. I was hoping it would be a fun cozy mystery series and was looking forward to reading all of the books but I can't even get through the first book in the box set. Camilla is ridiculous, shallow, and quite possibly the more moronic character I have ever read. I originally bought this box set on kindle back in 2013 for 99 cents. What a waste of a dollar.
Profile Image for L. Deborah Sword.
8 reviews
Read
November 22, 2021
This is three books in one. Most of my comments will apply to all three, and then some specifics of each book.
It was fun reading about rich, spoiled, self centered Camilla Randall's descent into poverty and insight. Anne Allan's protagonist starts out with everything a 42 room mansion can hold, including a stable for her horse and garage for her DeLorean, and she has the psychological depth of a tree stump.

In a series of well-crafted set backs in Book 1, Camilla loses the property and gains a soul. Not an enlightened soul, but that might happen should she ever find true love. The action starts when her deep in debt father dies in either a murder, suicide, or accident. Her mother, suddenly bankrupt, marries a brutal billionaire rather than lose her Bergdorf credit card. Camilla flees, gets into a bad crowd, finds a career and gets set-up for murder. The evocation of the Ronald Reagan years is quite well done. Although the story is kick started with the mystery of what caused her father's death, that's sorted out as almost an afterthought.

Book 2 finds Camilla moved into more modern times, post-divorce to the man she hated, loved, lost and then married in Book 1. She's still destitute, her career hanging on a thread and her choice in men remains abysmal. Her designer duds help her attract the wrong men, including those who die everywhere she goes. Some of the themes resonate from Book 1; is her new love the killer? Is he Mr Right or another Mr. run as fast as you can as far away from him as possible? Will she learn self-sufficiency and self-restraint? Some things are different from Book 1: It's moved from third to first person narrative. While still cheeky funny there are elements of farce in some of the crowd scenes at the writers' conference. Camilla is still broke but her image management has improved.

Book 3 and other man inconveniently dead at her designer clad feet, and the recurrent theme of which of her inappropriate male interests might be the killer. This time she is more resilient and resourceful, so that's a nice evolution of her character. The mystery killer is well developed.

Two areas where Ms. Allen could have been more attentive: the story needed one more edit for typos and repetition. 1. Be prepared to overlook missing and additional words in some sentences and for the question Who Killed Lance to get asked a lot more than needed. The story could move faster and the conflicts Camilla encounters could evolve over time. 2. Some of the mystery in Book 1 isn't as clearly resolved as it might have been.

In all three stories I enjoyed that Anne Allen's prose is laugh out loud (or at least smile in appreciation) humorous. The writing is often sassy and original, and always readable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for William Hahn.
Author 33 books31 followers
June 25, 2013
Pull down your list of superlatives. This is the best mystery tale I've read since Spenser, and here's the real kicker- it's just as funny. Fewer fistfights, but what you gonna' do, nothing's perfect.

Camilla Randall as a movie would be "Legally Blonde" meets "Perils of Pauline". My advice to you- well, first off, don't be an idiot, buy this book, but after that my advice would be 1) stop trying to figure out what's up, and 2) read it while seated and wearing a safety belt. The twists and dips got so violent that towards the end of the first mystery I started to feel better when things went badly for Camilla, and nervous when they improved. You just KNOW... but then Anne Allen proves you wrong again. You don't know. Sit back and enjoy.

A debutante with neither malice nor clue is plunged into murder, bankruptcy, drugs, sex and more fashion-nightmares than you can count. Neither she nor anyone she meets turns out to be the person you thought at first: it's not that there aren't wonderfully cliched characters, but they insist on playing musical chairs.

As an author I long to hear readers say that my tales have heart; that tug in your chest while you follow a character means you care what happens, you're invested, the story affects you. Ms. Allen accomplishes this not only for Camilla, but for a respectable cadre of friends, nemeses, and supposedly-chance acquaintances. What on earth will happen next? And one more thing- when readers invest time and energy looking at your world, they need to know it all means something. In spades! You will be watching each crumpled newspaper and discarded cigarette butt before this tale is done- everything comes around for Camilla, which is a true testament to this wonderful character.

Buy this book if you love mystery, adventure, humor, spicy romance, female protagonists, sexually ambiguous confidantes, snippy rivals, reality-immune mothers, Feds who actually know what they're doing, reporters who don't, or the wisest garbage collector since "Dilbert". This is the first book I bought purely because I liked the author's blog post. Her writing gave me complete confidence that I would be in good hands, even way out of my normal genre. And it's probably the best story I've bought this year. My highest recommendation to The Camilla Randall Mysteries.
Profile Image for Carla Emmons.
58 reviews1 follower
September 19, 2013
I bought this set and the next book for 99¢ each. I have gotten my money's worth.

The writing is technically very good. There's quite a bit of wit in the writing, even. The editing is also good - fewer of the typographical errors we tend to get in ebooks too. The characters are well-developed and fairly consistent (even if they are just consistent in their inconsistency). The supporting characters in each story are gems.

The problems?
I have no inclination to care one bit about the main character. She's passive, shallow, and rather foolish in general. Very little evidence of a strong, modern woman there. But, she was a debutante, so this is not a surprise in choices of caricatures. Her character doesn't overcome challenges and change like I am convinced she should do. Sometimes she overcomes challenges, sometimes she's handed a get out of jail free card, but ultimately I don't feel like the character evolves other than in the very first book in the set.

The plots are terrible: predictable, over-complicated but pedantic, and rather familiar.

This was my first venture into Chick Lit. I will read the 4th book since I bought it. I think the writer's skills are there and they're fast, light reads, but that's the last I need to read of Camilla Randall.
Profile Image for Karen.
297 reviews21 followers
December 8, 2015
These are the Camilla Randall mysteries and have been described as " Bridget Jones meet Miss Marple." I'm not quite sure that's an apt description. Bridget Jones may have been ditsy, but she wasn't stupid and there is ABSOLUTELY NO resemblance to Miss Marple. Though there are murders in the books, Camilla doesn't really do any investigating. The action happens around her as she lives her life as a penniless socialite (can one be a former socialite?) and interacts with her loser friends. She's involved in the murders, but I can't say she really solves them. The character is pretty naive in the first book (supposedly a prequel, but it's the first I read anyway), which is fine because she's 19. However, she doesn't really change in the latter two books when she's 20+ years older. She's still the same, makes the same mistakes, etc. They were freebie mysteries (for e-book apps) and sounded fun. I was wrong. I wouldn't recommend them.

I see there is now a third (or 3.5/fourth) book in the series. I am torn... I've started the series and wonder if the third (or fourth) time's the charm. I liked some aspects of the stories/characters, but don't know if I could really stomach another, especially since (right now) I'd have to pay for it (the e-Book is $4 right now).
Profile Image for Breath of Life.
338 reviews63 followers
September 23, 2013
I am a mystery buff at heart. I would rather have a book in my hands that has so much mystery that with every turn you don't know what to expect. Some of my first books were mysterys, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys just to name a couple.

So when I came across a post on this book, The Camilla Randall Mysteries Set by Author Anne R. Allen, well let me say that I was not going to let this one go by me with out at least giving it a read. Boy Oh Boy am I SO GLAD I DID!

This is three books in one, that alone is an amazing deal. Then you add mystery in each one and there you go. The cover alone caught my:

To read more of my review:
Breath of Life
Profile Image for Allison.
674 reviews36 followers
September 30, 2013
I actually enjoyed the 3rd book in the series more than the 1st one. The second one also seemed better to me than the 1st. Maybe it was just me. I felt the writing was good I just didn't like Camilla's personality in the first book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews

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