Carmela Bertrand recently reconciled with her estranged husband, Shamus Meecham, and is living once again in their large home in the Garden District of New Orleans. She's lucky in that her scrapbooking shop, Memory Mine, survived Hurricane Katrina when so many other businesses did not. One morning Shamus announces he's going to make breakfast for her (with Carmela's misgivings, as Shamus is messy), and when she hears a crash downstairs she assumes it's him. But when she arrives in their kitchen, the mess is much larger, and includes broken glass -- because Shamus has been kidnapped. After calling the police, she runs for help from Shamus's Uncle Henry, who lives a few doors down, she finds him in his study, shot through the head. When Carmela's dogs jump on the man, he falls over, revealing a book stuffed beneath the cushions of the chair, which Carmela puts on an end table.

Then she calls for police for Henry, but they've arrived at her home, and before she can get a word in edgewise regarding Henry, Shamus's sister runs over screaming about him and passes out. Now there's both a kidnapping and a murder. And Glory -- who hates Carmela -- has just kicked her out of her home and given her five minutes to get out.

So Carmela needs to find Shamus since it seems the police aren't making any headway, and she also wants to know who killed Henry. Even though she's warned to leave it alone, Carmela isn't willing to do that. Especially when she figures out there's more at stake than just the kidnapping. It could mean her own life as well...

First I have to say that while I enjoyed this book, I'm pretty sure that Glory couldn't have just kicked Carmela out of the home she'd been living in without serving eviction papers, even if it did belong to Glory. Carmela was living there with her husband, who's missing, not dead, and if she could just walk up and tell her to leave, there'd be a whole lot of nervous people in this country whose relatives don't like them. Just sayin'. So that kind of threw me. (I'm pretty sure in Louisiana you have to give at least five days' notice, so the police following her around didn't make any sense at all.

Other than that, since this is the fourth in the series, I've decided to go back and read them in order and this was the next on my list. I thought it was decent in the fact that Carmela is no dummy, and can hold her own in a war of wits, but she's not very smart when it comes to Shamus. I've always felt that he's been keeping her around as eye candy, and using her when it's convenient for him. Carmela, citing that "she loves him," puts up with his rude behavior toward her.

Of the first four books, this is my least favorite so far. It didn't take her long to find Shamus, and when she did, she allowed him to call people outside by himself. What if the kidnappers had seen him and found him? Then they'd all be kidnapped.

Also, it appears when it comes to business, neither Glory nor Shamus have any real knowledge of determining character. They seem to lend to people they like, regardless of whether it makes sense to have that person investigated further before parting with huge amounts of money. This also bothered me.

The ending I didn't care for at all. While everything was resolved the way it normally would be, I didn't find it really believable, and it was less than satisfying. While I may read the next in the series, if it isn't up to the standards of the first, I probably won't continue. This book was heavily disappointing. ( )

When I first started this series I didn't really care for the characters, I don't know why - just didn't take to them, I don't really scrapbook either so... For some reason, I saw this one and said let's give 'em another go round just to make sure.

Okay, I'm starting to like these characters, they are growing on me, and I think that it's because life isn't all peachy keen in their world, they all have issues just like all of us. I'll be honest, I still don't scrapbook, but I like the setting and the story; and with Carmela and her interesting group of patrons and neighbors within the Quarter, I'd come back and visit.
( )

A few years ago, I was the senior Buyer for an online crafts site. This book came across my desk. The author wanted us to sell it on our site.

I never got around to it, the site folded after the crisis of '08, & this has sat on my TBR shelf ever since. I kept it more because of the connection to New Orleans, where I lived fir several years, than anything else.

I'm now in the process of emptying what has become my TBR bookcase, & this was up. As I originally suspected, it's not very good. Not because the author didn't try - in fact, because she tries too hard. I got from the fact that Carmella wakes up in the Garden District that she's wealthy - I didn't need the glassware & furniture explained in such detail to confirm it. It's name-dropping, & it's annoying. I stuck it out til she got to planning scrapbook pages in a not-at-all subtle way before I abandoned it altogether.

It's too bad: the makings of enjoyable NOLA characters are there. But I can't sit through it.

However, the recipes included in the back sound awesome... ( )

Synopsis: Carmela and Shamus are back together and things seem to be going right until he gets kidnapped and his uncle murdered. The questions that arise are who master-minded the kidnapping, is this person involved with the murder, and is Ava's newest boyfriend involved?
Review: This is a nicely twisted story. I'm hoping that Carmela has booted Shamus for good; I still don't like women letting men behave badly. ( )

A nice little mystery. Great protagonist. ( )