A widow in a mansion. Dark secrets. And poison, deadly poison.
After amateur detective Molly Sutton stumbles on a dead body, she wastes no time before eavesdropping and elbowing her way into conversations all over the French village of Castillac. But when Chief Dufort is about to clap handcuffs on the wrong man, she’s got to do more than chat to save him. Will she have the stuff—and the skill—to … the stuff—and the skill—to pull it off?
The Luckiest Woman Ever is the second book in the Molly Sutton Mystery series. (Though you learn more about Molly and her friends reading the books in order, the mysteries are standalone.) If expertly woven cozy mysteries, characters with depth, and detectives with a taste for French food are your thing, Nell Goddin’s tales of murder will be right up your alley.
Come follow the twists and turns of the case along with Molly–get your copy of The Luckiest Woman Ever today!
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Book was a little hard to follow, but well worth the effort.
Nell Goddin has become one of my favorite authors. Her stories are clean, interesting, fun, and keep you guessing to the end as to who the killer was. I enjoy reading about the main character Molly Sutton and the romance with former gendarme Ben Dufort. Castillac, France sounds like a wonderful little village with a whole cast of characters that are typical of many small towns worldwide. Each book is a standalone but builds on story development from the previous books in the series. I’ve read them all and can’t wait until the next one comes out.
This is the most painful book review I’ve ever written because I’ve been raised in a tradition of “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”. On the other hand, if Ms. Goddin aspires to be a writer, a lack of reviewer honesty isn’t going to help her achieve that goal. The characters in this book are so defined by highly exaggerated singular qualities–nosiness, nastiness, lethargy etc.–that they quickly become tiresome in their predictability. The main character, an American living in the south of France, seems to spend most of her time purchasing and eating pastries including, incomprehensibly, while reading old records in the town’s administrative building. She worries about how she’s going to support herself at the same time as she hires a local mason to rebuild the walls of falling down dovecot so she can convert it into a cottage for tourist.
Other chapters introduce the reader to other characters who display comparable poor defined traits or muddled thinking. This includes the local chief of police who apparently is supposed to introduce some romantic interest. However he was so vague, it was understandable why his existing girlfriend dumped him. Her BFF alternates between being an obnoxious boor, blatant flirt, and good pal. The over-the-top descriptions of the murder victim’s evilness reduced her, too, to more of a caricature than a believable human being.
I could go on but you get the picture.
This is the kind of manuscript that the writer should tuck in a drawer or archive file for several years while the writer reads and reads and reads some more books written by successful writers in the genre she hopes to master. While she may not believe this now, I suspect that once she does this and then returns to the file to this book she’ll say, “What was I thinking?”
Tis’ the hazard of the Internet that it’s now possible to give into the temptation to write a book and publish it without taking the time to develop the necessary writing and sometimes desperately needed brutal editing skills. We live in a world that increasingly urges us to “Just do it!” and it’s difficult to resist that siren call. There’s no shame in that and publishing a stinker. What the writer does with the knowledge gained from the experience is all that counts. If the experience causes the writer to improve their skills, then the pain of facing that it takes a lot of hard work to write a good book more than worth it.
Enjoyed it because I like stories taking place in France.
Enjoyed reading 1st two books in this series.
Characters were interesting and believable. It was easy for the reader to become involved in the village life and become part of the story. The ending was not predictable .
Fun read
This book has a unique setting, richly limbed characters, and is a great start for any number of books to follow in series.
Loved seeing the character of Molly develop as well as the other characters in this charming this quaint French village. Possible love interest for Molly in the works? Looking forward to reading the next one!
The beginning bored me and I went onto something more interesting.
Books that I am not really excited about are those that take a meandering route to tell the story. You want description for the scene and the characters but often I feel this is overdone to the detriment of the telling of the tale.
I like the way the plot built. Especially enjoyed the relationships developing with townspeople.
There were some interesting characters here and the plot had some good points. It seemed to end a bit abruptly. I would read another by this author to get more of an idea of how I like her writing style.