These books are getting fairly predictable but I still enjoy them! ( )

It ok read. Nothing new to the mystery genre, I know who the culprit was about half way. ( )

I keep being attracted to books in this series by the subject matter (in this case, ren faires) but the protagonist is just too annoying for words. I swear, this will be the last one I read! ( )

I grabbed this because I like a good (or, for that matter, bad) cozy on a lazy rainy day, and since I was going to spend a week at a medieval re-enactment, a "cozier than thou cozy" about a renaissance fest seemed like the perfect thing to bring for a rained-out afternoon.

And that is when I read it! I liked it okay - the portrayal of the re-enactors was much better than I was expecting, the scene-setting was fun, the mystery plot didn't drag too badly - but then I got to the bit where the protagonist is sexually assaulted, and I had to put the book down and go out into the rain for a bit.

It's not even that it's badly done - her reaction, and the town's, is believable, especially the way she has an emotional breakdown, assumes it's due to being "childishly emotional" rather than "having just had to physically defend myself from sexual assault", and then decides to spend the next week worrying about her husband's reaction to the assault rather than her own, decides it was all because she wore a low-cut top, and agrees with everyone else in town that the apparently serial rapist is just a bit of a merry womanizer.

Like I said, totally 100% believable, but not at ALL what I find "cozy". (I was also less than comforted by the fact that she blames herself for the actual bad guy [not the rapist]'s mental breakdown, because she didn't realize he was flirting with her and therefore it was clearly all her fault he thought he was a failure and decided to attempt murder??)

It's kind of depressing when a book that is clearly about a woman, by a woman, and for women doesn't seem to have actually made up its mind on the question of whether women are people.

The cover's great, though. I agree with the other reviewers on that. ( )

A small renaissance fair comes to the sleepy village of Finch, bringing in new characters, troublemakers, and (of course) a msytery for Lori, Aunt Dimity, and Reginald to solve.

I grew up attending the Northern California Renaissance Faire, so quite a few of Nancy Atherton's descriptions of the atmosphere and interaction made me laugh out loud (as did the reactions of the Finchites). ( )