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Book Review: Three to Get Lei’d by Jill Marie Landis (Series, #3)
Summary:
A jigger of tranquility is all Em Johnson wants, but now that her beloved Tiki Goddess Bar has been chosen as the location for Trouble in Paradise, TV’s hot new reality show, life is anything but tranquil. When a member of the camera crew is found dead in her kitchen-stabbed to death with Chef Kimo’s sashimi knife-the scene on the sleepy North Shore of Kauai goes from eccentrically crazy to downright dangerous. Suspects lurk behind every paper drink umbrella.
Review:
This book brought back all the strengths from the first book with the added delight of everyone at the Tiki Goddess Bar being featured on a reality tv show. As a (not-so-secret) lover of reality tv for the over-the-top ridiculousness and a lover of cozies for their delightful tongue-in-cheek puns and ability to not take themselves too seriously, the marriage of the two in this book was sheer delight.
A couple of scenes in particular struck me as the type of mad-cap tom-foolery seen in older 1920s romps, only with the added twist of reality tv cameras following the moves. I honestly would love to see a “The Office” style take on this series…a fake reality tv show version of the Tiki Godess Bar. That’d be a hoot! Anyway, one scene I really enjoyed involves the Hula Maidens in hula costume sneaking around on a golf course. Delightful.
I also like that the plot, although a bit predictable, weaves in a few different elements of various characters’ lives and stories. Em’s life moves forward, as does her uncle’s. Nothing is stagnant, just because murder is happening. I also thought grief and concern for loved ones’ safety were depicted well and realistically without slowing the plot down or removing the joy from the narrative.
All-in-all, a fun entry in the series that left me eager for the next one….and hoping the reality show will be back!
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 248 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Gift
Previous Books in Series:
Mai Tai One On, review
Two to Mango, review
Book Review: Two To Mango by Jill Marie Landis (Series, #2)
Summary:
Em Johnson, manager of the Tiki Goddess Bar on Kauai, never intended to get involved in one murder investigation, let alone two. But when the hunky fire dancing detective Roland Sharpe asks for her help looking into some suspicious deaths in a high-profile, competitive halau (hula group), she just can’t say no. Before she knows it, she’s entering the geriatric Hula Maidens halau into the biggest hula competition on the island to help her get in where she can snoop.
Review:
I’ve dipped my toe in a few cozy series, but this is the first one that’s managed to call me back for a second helping. They’re all entertaining in their own way, but this series is also unique and engaging enough to keep me coming back for more, and thankfully those unique elements stayed strong in the second entry.
Em is a good cozy mystery heroine. She’s smart and willing to help but isn’t running amok destroying the police department’s days. She only helps when asked and even then, she’s a bit reluctant to disrupt her life. On the other hand, when she does help, she’s good at it. She lends insight that it makes sense only she would have, such as being able to infiltrate the halau competition. This lets both her and the inevitably hunky police detective she’s helping seem smart and efficient. She also has that every woman quality that lets the reader insert herself into the story.
The setting is perfect escapism. A Hawaiian seaside tiki bar that feels like Hawaii’s answer to Cheers. If Cheers had a set of geriatric hula dancers who started “rehearsing” aka drinking before noon. Not to mention an aging hippie who thinks he’s engaged to a dolphin. The setting represents both the beauty of Hawaii and the diversity of Hawaiians and Hawaiian culture. I certainly learned a few words of Hawaiian along the way in addition to thinking fondly of how nice it would be to live in a place with such tropical beauty.
The plot was multifaceted and engaging. Every character really has their own life and they manage to intertwine just the right amount. The murders (and attempted murders) happened at the right frequency and managed to be a surprise at least part of the time. The murder weapons are creative and well-thought-out. The plot is not predictable but it’s also not entirely off the wall. I felt surprised but also to a certain level knew that I could have figured it out if I’d thought a bit more. That’s the perfect amount of mystery in my book.
This would have been five stars, but there is one part of the book that I thought was in very poor taste at best. This is not a plot spoiler, as it is not necessary to the mystery at all. At one point, Little Estelle (the eldest of the Hula Maidens), climbs into a man’s car and basically throws herself at him. If the genders were reversed, this would definitely be read as a creepy old man assaulting a pleasant young woman. But since it’s an old woman it’s written for laughs. I get it that Little Estelle is presented as a horny, senile old woman, but there’s a way to write that that doesn’t verge into sexual assault territory. I just don’t find that sort of thing funny, and even though I get it that the intention was oh that silly old woman, it didn’t sit well to me. If this was my first Landis book, I probably would have stopped reading. I didn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t, because the rest of the book is 1,000 times more humorous and creative than those few pages. But I am disappointed that Landis chose to write Little Estelle that way. Others might find it more humorous than I did. I just don’t see such things as a laughing matter.
Most cozy books come with an arts and crafts do at home type project. This series includes drink recipes. I’m pleased to say that this book has even more drink recipes at the end than the first one, although I have yet to try mixing any myself. They are creative and fun-looking, though, and let the reader feel a bit like the Tiki Goddess could really exist.
Overall, this is an engaging, humorous cozy mystery. Readers of the first book will enjoy their return to the world of the Tiki Goddess. I am anticipating the next entry in the series, although I do hope that Landis will improve the characterization of Little Estelle.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Gift
Previous Books in Series:
Mai Tai One On
Book Review: Mai Tai One On by Jill Marie Landis (series, #1)
Summary:
Newly-divorced Em jumps at the chance to move to Kauai, Hawaii to assist her aging uncle in running his tiki bar. She hires a young, punk-style waitress who seems to be running from bad choices, and she gets to know the aging hula dance group that performs for free (it’s not like anyone would willingly pay them). Em is managing to increase business for the tiki bar and is starting to feel refreshed from her new life when the tiki bar’s neighbor shows up dead in their barbeque pit–with a machete slash through his skull. The gorgeous fire knife spinning detective Roland sees Em, the waitress, and her Uncle Louie as the prime suspects, so clearly Em and the hula group must work together to find the real culprit.
Review:
This was my first foray into the fairly newish cozy mystery genre. A cozy mystery is one involving something violent, but the violence is never particularly shown in a gruesome way, and the characters handle the situation in a humorous fashion. It’s kind of like a modern version of Agatha Christie. They also are really well-known for having puns in the titles. (Another one that springs to mind is The Long Quiche Goodbye
So what about this particular cozy? Well, the pun in the title is cute but doesn’t really have anything to do with the story. I can’t quite figure out what, exactly, is supposedly being tied on or tied up or what have you. No one is killed by ties. Basically, the title is a bit witty, but confusing.
The humor is excellent. I found myself laughing out loud multiple times while reading. In fact, this is the strong point of the book. Think of the wittiest, snarkiest person you know, then imagine that everyone around you has that same sense of humor. It’s delightfully funny and relaxing.
The characterization ranges from really well-done to painfully one-dimensional or lacking in vividness. For instance, all of the Hula Maidens are richly drawn elderly women who still have a lot of spunk and life left in them. Yet the main character, Em, is so dull that I kept mixing her up with the waitress. Similarly, some characters are so over-the-top as to be a bit offensive. For instance, a new addition to the island are Fernando and his boyfriend Wally who are both quite possibly the most flamboyant characters I’ve ever seen in a novel. Now, given the extremes of the Hula Maidens, that’s fine, but Wally is never given another element to his character. Whereas it is later revealed that a lot of Fernando’s flamboyance is an act for his career, Wally is such a gay stereotype he even repeatedly faints and is never given any other realm of possibility besides fabulous gay boyfriend. This is odd because the situation certainly arose to make him more compelling and well-rounded without diverting from the main storyline. Although I appreciate the inclusion of gay characters in the book that the other characters simply accept, I do wish Landis had been a bit more careful with her characterization of them.
The mystery itself isn’t too mysterious. Landis’s one attempt at misleading the reader into believing someone else is the murderer is so obvious as to be painful. I actually cringed on her behalf when reading the passage. The characters and humor are allowed to be obvious, but the mystery shouldn’t be.
I can give a pass to both of those issues considering that this is a cozy, and from what I’ve heard from friends who are fans, these sort of things are common in them. The one big problem though is that this book sorely, direly needed better editing. There were mistakes everywhere, which is baffling considering it comes from a publishing house (who supposedly are better because of the “professional” way they handle things….but that’s an issue for a different post). There were multiple sentences with verbs in the wrong location or written twice. Spelling errors and typos were present throughout. This really distracted me from my enjoyment of the story, because the flow would be interrupted while I double-checked that I read the sentence correctly. There is simply no excuse for such shoddy editing, although it is obviously the fault of the publishing house and editor, not the author.
These things said, though, looking at the book overall, it is still an enjoyable read. Ignoring the editing issues, it is an enjoyable cozy, but not an amazing one. The setting and rambunctious characters of the Hula Maidens hold much promise for future entries in the series. Hopefully it will go uphill from here. I recommend it to people who already know they are fans of cozies, but those who are uncertain should probably give it a pass.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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