Journaled to Death by Heather Redmond

[spindizzy]

Divorced single mom Mandy Meadows scrapes by working as a barista and receiving payments from her cousin, Ryan, who rents her basement apartment. At night, she and her teenage daughter Vellum run a successful home business creating journaling content on their popular social media channels.

But Mandy's carefully organized world is about to come crashing down. While filming their latest journaling tutorial, Mandy and Vellum hear a loud noise on the basement stairs, and Mandy is horrified to find Ryan dead on the landing. The police quickly start to treat the death as a murder - with Mandy and Vellum as chief suspects. Why would someone murder Ryan? Determined to clear their names and find Ryan's killer, Mandy soon discovers he wasn't the man she thought he was...

Heather Redmond's Journaled to Death is the intersection of two of my most favourite interests: stationery and cozy crime novels. Underemployed single-mother Mandy has a lot on her plate; her job in the hospital café is under threat, her stationery channel is taking up more of her time – and her cousin has just been murdered.

Okay, I need to get this off my chest before I go further into this review: I WOULD REALLY LIKE A COZY MYSTERY WITH AN OPENLY BISEXUAL PROTAGONIST PLEASE. Like, sure, Mandy talks about how hot the men around her are, but she also talks about how hot her female neighbour who stress-bakes late night brownies is, and how proud she'd be to land her hot female frenemy as a date, so would it REALLY be that much of a stretch to make them an option in her dating pool? Especially in a book that acknowledges that bisexuality and polyamory exists, at least for minor characters!

(It might also mean that there was less of the "I'm not saying you're asking for trouble by dressing like that, but," stuff going on, which would be SPECTACULAR.)

Anyway, back to the actual book! ( Read more... )