Connie di Marco
Book Blurb:
Julia Bonatti loves the freedom of working for herself as a professional astrologer. But after receiving several unexpected bills, she considers a temp job offer from her old boss a stroke of luck too good to pass up.
On her first day, the posh law office becomes a crime scene when one of the partners is found dead. Julia discovers that a series of death threats have been sent to several employees of the firm, and she uses her astrological expertise to discover possible motives. But before she can convince the authorities of what she knows, the killer strikes again. Will Julia unmask the culprit before he, or she, takes another life?
This book was alternately charming and frustrating. It was charming in the descriptions of San Francisco - the atmosphere created by the fog creeping in, feeling the dampness and hearing the foghorns; the history of some of the areas of San Francisco; or the fact the main character's home is on solid bedrock - and she sleeps better because of it! Even the cover adds to the charm of the book; I loved the richness of it and how it echos the theme of dragons in the book. The frustrating part is where there is an abundance of minutia that doesn't advance the the plot or enhance the characters. When it's mentioned a character has loosen his tie at 8:30 Monday morning, there's no followup. Does he always do it, indicating he's laid back, is at a rare occurrence, indicating he's worried, or is it foreshadowing of something else? Or all the description given to driving - whole paragraphs detailing turning on one street, circling around looking for parking spot - without it adding to the plot. Yes, traffic's bad, but that could be said about a number of cities; since I'm not familiar with San Francisco, it comes across as just padding the book. There's also a number of paragraphs describing people's charts without giving the reader what "transitioning Pluto in Capricorn" actually means. Again, without some context, those paragraphs become more padding when they could enlighten the reader about astrology.
Overall, an intriguing book with a few flaws.
I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley and voluntarily chose to review.
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