Against the Currant

Against the Currant (2023) Olivia Matthews (Spice Isle Bakery)

I wanted to love this story. Cozy mystery! Bakery! Female heroine!

Instead, I found myself skimming to finish so I could start something else. Mostly I skimmed anything that wasn’t dialog, then once a section of dialog was finished, I’d start skimming again.

My first problem was that some elements that got repeated made that repetition stand out as such rather than a style element. For example, there are three separate instances of customers in line swinging their hips to the music. It seems like a little thing, but “hips” ended up catching my attention, pulling my out of the story to wonder what other ways the could instead have described dancing while standing inline.

The second problem is that the police were presented as stupid or lazy or something that made them unwilling to bother to look at literally any other suspect–most of whom had lots of motive rather than a short verbal spat.

The third problem is that after complaining about the police not doing their jobs properly, the main character still goes on about her crush on the cop she went to school with.

Was Bryce’s attention solely due to the case? Now that it was over, would I ever see him again? Or would I have to go back to cyber stalking him?

Wow. That’s a whole lot of feeling for someone you were claiming was incompetent.

So, as much as I wanted to love this story, mostly I just wanted to finish it so I could read something else.

Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks

Rating: 5/10

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