Another Fine Mess by Lindy Ryan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another Fine Mess is the 2nd-book in Lindy Ryan’s Cozy Horror-Mystery series, Bless Your Heart. This adorable, yet slightly graphic series, is set in small town-Texas in the 90s.
It’s a series my Horror-loving, Cozy Mystery-obsessed heart didn’t know it needed, but now adores with wild abandon.
I can’t say too much about the plot without potentially giving away important aspects of the 1st-book, Bless Your Heart, so I’m going to keep this short and simple.
Basically, these books follow the women in the Evans family, who own and operate a Funeral Home. This is a very important job, because in their small town, the dead sometimes rise and they’re not happy. It’s the Evans job to make sure they stay dead and buried.
While the 1st-book was more of a vampire-esque story, this one has the town believing that some sort of hybrid-wolf is on a rampage, killing townsfolk and possibly stealing pieces of their bodies. It’s a bloody mess.
We follow the Evans women, and a few of their allies, as they try to determine what’s actually going on, and stop it before more innocent lives are lost.
The deeper they dig however, the more it seems this killer may be somehow connected to them, but how?
I thought this was so entertaining. I listened to the audiobook again and love Stephanie Nemeth-Parker’s narration. It’s such a great fit for this series. I highly recommend the audio format.
To me these books have the perfect mix of Horror, heart and Mystery. The Horror aspects are mainly contained within the kill scenes and the supernatural elements. Other than that, it is all Cozy Mystery.
I think Ryan does a great job of blending those two worlds together, and I know a lot of Readers, myself included, absolutely adore both genres. Having them together like this is just such a delight.
Even though I don’t find the mysteries to be particularly memorable, I still love reading them. It’s not something that’s going to stick with me until the end of time, but I don’t really need it to.
I read for entertainment and to escape from real life for a while, and Ryan definitely provides me that escape with these stories. I walk away a happy girl!
Thank you to the publisher, Minotaur Books and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I’m really hoping this series continues.
I would love to spend more time with the Evans women. I feel closer to them now than ever!