The Quilters Push Back
(Miranda Hathaway Adventures #7)
(Miranda Hathaway Adventures #7)
by Mary Devlin Lynch, Debbie Devlin Zook, and Beth Devlin-Keune
Blurb:
Not even Cutler Pennsylvania is immune from the serious drug epidemic spreading across the nation. When local kids started dying, Cutler Quilt Guild Number One jumped into action. Using every skill they have from sewing to surveillance, they are determined to find the drug dealers and push them out. It might be time for Harriet to dust off her taser!
My Reaction:
(This was another 372-Pages podcast/book club selection. Shared read-aloud with Donald!)
I was excited that the podcast hosts chose a quilting-themed series for their first "cozy mystery", because, well, I'm a quilter! Actually, I still feel a little strange calling myself a quilter, but I have a closet full of fabric, I own a mid-arm quilting machine, and I guess I've been doing it long enough now that it's not a lie, even though it still feels weird, like some craft-world version of "stolen valor"! I'm fine saying "I quilt", but calling myself "a quilter" seems more formal-- and contestable. "You can't really call yourself a quilter until you've completed 50 quilts, mastered the scant quarter-inch seam, and publicly chastized someone for calling a quilt a 'blanket'!"
I've read a few cozy mysteries in the past, before getting bored because I didn't really enjoy them. Those were about crochet and other niche interests; this was my first time reading a quilting-themed novel. To call it "quilt-themed" is quite a stretch, to be honest. There is very little quilting in the story. (Spoiler alert! We went back and read the first book and half of the series, too, while we waited between podcast episodes, and those also had precious little quilting or quilting talk in them-- but at least there was more of an effort, in the first one.)
I realize that even quilters might not enjoy reading a book with too much actual quilting as the focus of the story, but there was so little quilting here that it felt pointless to make it part of a quiltilng series. The group could easily have been focused on nearly any other hobby. All you'd have to do would be to change the name of the group (or guild, in this instance) and have them make something other than pillows for their fundraiser-- jewelry, crochet potholders, knitted hats, baked goods, jam, BBQ ribs, etc. (Come to think of it, those pillows were more about embroidery than quilting, anyway! And they did an almost identical fundraiser in the first book of the series!!)
I was excited that the podcast hosts chose a quilting-themed series for their first "cozy mystery", because, well, I'm a quilter! Actually, I still feel a little strange calling myself a quilter, but I have a closet full of fabric, I own a mid-arm quilting machine, and I guess I've been doing it long enough now that it's not a lie, even though it still feels weird, like some craft-world version of "stolen valor"! I'm fine saying "I quilt", but calling myself "a quilter" seems more formal-- and contestable. "You can't really call yourself a quilter until you've completed 50 quilts, mastered the scant quarter-inch seam, and publicly chastized someone for calling a quilt a 'blanket'!"
I've read a few cozy mysteries in the past, before getting bored because I didn't really enjoy them. Those were about crochet and other niche interests; this was my first time reading a quilting-themed novel. To call it "quilt-themed" is quite a stretch, to be honest. There is very little quilting in the story. (Spoiler alert! We went back and read the first book and half of the series, too, while we waited between podcast episodes, and those also had precious little quilting or quilting talk in them-- but at least there was more of an effort, in the first one.)
I realize that even quilters might not enjoy reading a book with too much actual quilting as the focus of the story, but there was so little quilting here that it felt pointless to make it part of a quiltilng series. The group could easily have been focused on nearly any other hobby. All you'd have to do would be to change the name of the group (or guild, in this instance) and have them make something other than pillows for their fundraiser-- jewelry, crochet potholders, knitted hats, baked goods, jam, BBQ ribs, etc. (Come to think of it, those pillows were more about embroidery than quilting, anyway! And they did an almost identical fundraiser in the first book of the series!!)
Anyway... This wasn't particularly well-written (for a variety of reasons), but it was unintentionally hilarious at times. Donald loved all the times that "everyone" in a group simultaneously performed various actions (laughing, smiling, cheering, nodding-- lots of nodding). Oh, and this: "Gabe snapped pictures as quietly as he could with the window rolled down." The mental image of someone trying to take photos "quietly"! Photography isn't typically all that noisy-- especially these days, with digital cameras and phone cameras-- and there's not much you can do to make it even quieter. Then there's the way "bad girls" are described (their hair, clothes, and make-up), the utter lack of undertstanding of how the legal system works, and a general air of naiveté.
This hasn't inspired me to seek out more cozy mysteries. Maybe there are some genuinely good, interesting, well-written series out there, but I'm not in any hurry to start searching for them, right now.
This hasn't inspired me to seek out more cozy mysteries. Maybe there are some genuinely good, interesting, well-written series out there, but I'm not in any hurry to start searching for them, right now.
