The Cracked Spine

By Paige Shelton

Group Comments:

A bit over the top. Even Jessica Fletcher solved a few mysteries at home before venturing out of town. Unbelievable. Plot and mystery were fine but main character’s circumstances way over the top.

Got the impression the author never set foot in Edinburgh or Scotland. Felt like a solid first draft. Very cliche. Unclear what the narrator, Delany’s, job was at the bookstore. Author relied a lot on coincidence and telling rather than showing. Unrealistic.

Mildly interesting but totally preposterous. Delany didn’t come across as even wanting to solve a mystery so why was she so nosy? No good descriptions of Edinburgh. I have dialectic Scots thrown into the narrative.

Unconvincing. Scots dialect hard to read.

Gave a different atmosphere to Edinburgh–a cozy, rather than the typical gritty police procedural often set in this place. Not much was plausible. Didn’t make sense why she was getting involved as an amateur cozy sleuth, since she had nothing to do with the people involved. There was no reason for her to insert herself.

Struck me as a low budget rom-com. So much opportunity to have a really interesting mystery but we didn’t get any of that.

I really did hate this book. I really want to like it–it’s the type of book I like-but the characters were caricatures. I kept expecting some supernatural crossover…the author didn’t take advantage of anything that she set up as possibilities for something more interesting.

A clear set up for a series, but could have been done so much more gracefully. The talking of books should have woven in more. Characters were very one dimensional.

I get that it’s a cozy, and you don’t read a cozy for realism. But it reads a bit like juvenile fiction. No depth to the characters, unconvincing premise, lots of reliance on coincidence, clearly a set up for a series and not done well. Loved everything about the city though. It has promise as a cozy if we can get a better plot the characters might just come into their own. The artifacts, looking for rare books and objects, the “talking” books–there is potential.