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Sto caricando le informazioni... The White Magic Five and Dimedi Steve Hockensmith, Lisa Falco (Autore)
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. Well. That wasn't at all what I was expecting. I bought The White Magic Five & Dime while I was home in the States visiting my personal mecca, the local Barnes & Noble. The title was on my radar but I knew little about it, so I read the first few pages (something I used to always do when I had the luxury of buying my books in a bookstore) and the character and narrative grabbed me. If not an actual by-the-rules cozy, I was expecting at least a story that stayed mostly within the cozy container: it had a cozy cover, a cozy title and the summary on the back certainly implied a certain amount of chick-lit, if not cozy, atmosphere. But by the time I closed the book I had to admit that my cozy expectations were not quite met. It's tricky; it's not like I could say this was noir, or hard-boiled, or a thriller, or a traditional mystery. I can't say it was violent or graphic or gory. It was none of those things. I don't know what to call it: just a murder mystery, I guess. First: Alanis's (the MC) mother was a con-man (using it in the gender neutral sense, because "Con-woman" sounds dumb) and she was raised without formal schooling, moving from town to city to town living in front of hotel room TVs when she wasn't actively participating in the cons themselves. She doesn't even know what her birth name is. As an adult, Alanis's goal has been to live as straight a life as possible while having no contact whatsoever with her mother. In this she succeeds, until her mother is murdered and she finds out she's been left a tarot card reading store-front and all her mothers belongings. For reasons the author never really explains, Alanis feels compelled to find out who murdered her mother; one last debt to be paid. It is certainly not because she cared about the woman at all - her mother was not a cozy con-man - she was a true grifter with no regard for her daughter or those around her and no redeeming qualities. The murder mystery itself - well that one smacked me upside the head in the end. The murderer never made it onto my radar; not even a blip of suspicion. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the author to swoop in and write the story equivalent of "psych!" but it didn't happen. In spite of these unfulfilled expectations I enjoyed the book: the writing was strong, the narrative solid - even the flashback chapters worked for me (and they almost never do). I loved the MC, although her pragmatic cynicism at the beginning was disheartening. She was confident, intelligent and self-aware and I cheered her on. I enjoyed reading the bits about the tarot too; enough that I could see myself picking up a book that talked more about them at some point. I believe this to be a stand-alone book. If cozy isn't your thing, but want something that isn't explicitly dark, this book might be worth investigating. Just don't go by the cover, the title or the synopsis. I was completely surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I can't remember how I first came across the title (which is driving me crazy). I think maybe while I was looking for cozy mystery read-alikes for the Flavia de Luce series. Anyhow it's been on my library list so I picked it up on a lark. I'm so delighted I did! I thought the tarot aspect would be cheesy, it isn't. There are a lot of one-liners and sarcasm from the narrator, but it rang true for me and never crossed the line into annoying and cheesy. I feel like this is probably going to be a series, so hopefully there will be more character development down the line. You get some personal glimpses of the narrator's past, but there's not really a lot we know for sure about who she is. I think this makes sense in the context of the story, though. It seems like the character doesn't really know who she is either. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Appartiene alle SerieTarot Mystery (1) Premi e riconoscimenti
Much to Alanis McLachlan's surprise, her estranged con-woman mother has left her an inheritance: The White Magic Five & Dime, a shop in tiny Berdache, Arizona. Reluctantly traveling to Berdache to claim her new property, Alanis decides to stay and pick up her mother's tarot business in an attempt to find out how she died. With help from a hunky cop and her mother's live-in teenage apprentice, Alanis begins faking her way through tarot readings in order to win the confidence of her mother's clients. But the more she uses the tarot deck, the more Alanis begins to find real meaning in the cards ... and the secrets surrounding her mother's demise. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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I quit at page 136. I kept reading that far, because I was hoping that at some point there would be a denouement of the main character realizing divination is real .. or some kind of redemption.
But then I realized I had developed a hard dislike for all the characters except maybe the cop (to the extent he was developed at all). Driven by self-consciously snappy, glib dialogue, and attitude up to our necks, it just annoyed the hell out of me. Goodbye, so long, I really don't care.
Soooooo glad it was only a library book. ( )