Customer Reviews

Christmas at Cliffhanger Inn

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

My nine-year-old daughter and I have enjoyed reading every book in this series together. After reading Christmas at Cliffhanger Inn, my daughter said that Ms. Collier's books are "warm and cozy and make me want to curl up in a corner of the couch under the lamp with them." I would add that the stories in this book grabbed me and made me keep reading until each mystery was solved, and the book left me with a warm feeling.

I have no idea how this book got published. I hate to say anything negative because it was clearly written by a very nice grandmother and would probably be quite pleasant to read to a child. However, it would be a huge mistake to let a child read this by him or herself as it is some of the worst writing I've read in a long time with only the most primitive sense of punctuation and grammar. A few examples:

1) Statement by the host of the inn on Christmas morning: "This is exactly what I wanted, every since I went to that Ducks Unlimited meeting duck decoys have interested me. Thanks honey."

2) "It was considered a very important job, as the streets needed light for the people and the horses and buggy's' to travel." (I cannot fathom actually writing the word " buggy's' "- 2 apostrophes? Was there no editor who even perused this book?)

3)"Don't look at us Art, why would we do that and how could anyone know what creamer Gina was going to use let alone get anywhere near her purse."

Sometimes the author will put a comma where it belongs as in "Mrs. Fields, I left you something in my room." However, most of the time we find sentences such as "Do you write Mr. Fleming?" There is no consistency, and again it appears that no editor even got near this book.

Beyond those problems, the book, published by something called "Mystery and Suspense Press," has absolutely no mystery or suspense. It's a series of quaint vignettes. I kept thinking the book must have been written for children because it was so incredibly tame, naive and one-dimensional. It clearly was not written for children, however, as suddenly you'll hit on a vignette wherein a diary entry suggests that a husband may or may not be trying to kill his wife or another in which a woman discovers she's pregnant with a home pregnancy test.

I finished the book for one reason only, which is that I love to read books at Christmas time in which we find fireplace fires, Christmas cookies, snowy days, egg nog, etc. The book certainly does not stint on those images. It's chocked full of them and too many Christmas books miss the boat when it comes to providing atmosphere. But what I had hoped to find was some mystery. I like Christmas mysteries. This is not a mystery. As I said before, only buy this book if your intention is to read it aloud to a child on a cozy Christmas afternoon (although you might skip the home pregnancy test).

I apologize to the writer. It's clear her intentions were the best. I imagine she is a lovely grandmother who does bake Christmas cookies and who gives her grandchildren a lovely haven. I also hate writing negative reviews, but this book was just mystifying to me.

I'm having trouble trying to figure out what is wrong with this book. Is it a mystery? If so it's really bad. Is it written for elementary students? If so they would have flung it out the window after the first 3 pages.
It's just a 'novella' with a lot of little vignettes which a 5 year old can see coming. Amazon has a lot of nerve to charge $9.95 for this.

This book is an excellent sequel to the other two. It amde me want to curl up in a coay chair by a warm fire and read. Once I started the book I had trouble putting it down. The mysteries were intriguing as well as the characters believable. I can't wait for her next book to see what the characters will do next.

I enjoyed this story. The characters were believable and interesting. The mysteries that were solved captured my attention with the dialogue and actions of the characters.

Christine Collier takes a normal character and puts them in incredible situations that draws the reader in to help solve the mystery. I picked up the story to read a few chapters, but couldn't put it down till I had read the last page. I will be waiting to read her next book to see what other mysteries she thinks up for her character's to solve.

This is a very thin book, only 72 pages and sounds very amateurish. There is no real overall plot - each short chapter has a "mystery" that is resolved in the chapter (like an old note that is found hidden in a staircase saying a body is buried in the basement many years ago - it turns out to be a pet dog; the skeleton of a severed foot is found in a Xmas tree lot - it turns out to be a man who had an accident many years ago that cut off his foot). The writing is awful. Yet, somehow, during the holiday season, it makes a nice read - just don't expect much...