Join Shannon McClain and the members of the Purls of Hope knitting circle in Apple Grove, Oregon, as they unravel the mysteries that touch their lives and the lives of those they care about in their quaint coastal town. In their sleuthing adventures the women will find danger, intrigue, and even romance.
Our sleuths visit a llama and alpaca farm. There's a property dispute. A lady with a store that sells yarn is very unfriendly. Accidents start to happen.
The idea of a knitting group solving crimes is a cute idea I have to admit.
Can you guess who the killer is….of course you can. It’s not a deep mystery at all. I think they’re known as a cozy mystery.
The problem with this book is there is a lot of dialogue. It’s not the first book in the series so I felt lost at times. Example: I was confused as to why she calls her mother Beth. I kind of wish this book had a quick who’s who at the start. But again because this book isn’t so deep into the mystery one can overlook it.
My biggest issue was that there are two crimes and it would have been better to split them into two books.
Everything gets wrapped up so fast. I mean you have a case of Llamas but also of illegals working for slave labor at a shop. That second story to me popped up out of nowhere. More hints should have been added such as the ladies wondering how anyone could knit 50 sweaters in a week by herself now that might have worked better to ease into the second story.
Again not the best or the worst book. If you want a quick read give it a try.
A friend gave me books from a different Annie's Attic series (Secrets of the Castleton Manor Library) and I went to Half Price Books looking to find later ones in that series and instead found this series. This is the last book from this series that I have for now though.
This book talks a lot about alpaca yarn and making clothes from alpaca yarn. There's a human trafficking subplot (because that seems to be the hot button fiction issue right now, just like vampires and zombies have been in the past), as well as the usual murder that this series contains.
I liked that there were lots of facts about alpacas (and some about llamas too and the differences between the two animals) as well as alpaca wool/fleece/yarn. As always, I feel like the non-law-enforcement characters take too many risks. Did they really need "proof" to report possible human trafficking to ICE?
Prefer books with crafting themes to have more details about the specific skill, e.g., projects, descriptions of yarn/patterns, etc. This book centered more on the mysteries, both of which were weak. It didn't really seem plausible that members of the knitting group would be so committed to solving the mysteries presented, especially when their lives were threatened. I mean how many of us actually know people who become involved in solving murders? In this case, more about knitting and less sleuthing would have improved the story in my opinion.
I didn't realize that this was book #2 in this series....hmmm, having said that, this book was written with little reference to book #1 and yet I found it easy to follow. The plot that the propensity to be "all over the place" but with some finesse-the book stayed on track! Bravo