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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hot Wedding, June 10, 2005
This review is from: Death Takes a Honeymoon (Carnegie Kincaid, Book 4) (Mass Market Paperback)
Carnegie Kincaid is not going to Idaho for the wedding of old friend, now famous TV actress Tracy Kane, and it didn't have anything to do with the fact she had once had a close encounter with the soon to be groom - smoke jumper, Jack "The Knack" Packard.
But her close friend, B.J. insists she needs her help, she has been unfaithful to her husband Matt, with Carnegie's cousin (who she was never close too), smoke jumper, Brian Theale. Brian won't give her back the specially designed necklace her husband had made for her and she has to have it by the wedding.
And then Brian is killed doing a smoke jump.
Was it an accident or murder?
Did it have anything to do with the necklace
Did it have anything to do with a supposed stolen treasure that the bride's late uncle, Roy was supposed to have stolen and who was thought to have committed suicide 30 years ago.
And on top of that Cissy Kane - mother of the bride insists Carneige take over as on-site wedding planner.
As more murders follow, Carneige begins to wonder if there are going to be enough guests left for the wedding.
And then there's that pesky fire.
Highlights:
Great mystery. Wonderful new characters. I love the detail about smoke jumpers and the work they do.
Aaron Gold - Carnegie's (We're just dating, nothing special as he tells the wedding guests) sort of boyfriend. Determined that he is not going to settle down and wants to keep things casual, but it doesn't stop him from getting into a knock down drag out fight when someone makes a comment about Carnegie.
Boris the florist, has to be flown in when the wedding's original florist is hospitalized with a bee sting. He is always funny and one of my favorite reoccuring characters.
Beau Paliere - Wedding Planner to the stars who shows up at the wedding after Cissy has substituted Carnegie for his manager. Beau is still upset about the toupee incident, but doesn't mind dumping all the work on Carnegie while getting all the praise.
Lowlights:
The reason this is a 3 star and not higher is the ending. Cliff Hanger's belong in weekly magazine's and old movie serials, not in books where the next one may not come out for another year. Since I read dozens of different series I don't instantly remember everything about characters or situations as soon as I start reading the book and may not remember a lot of details when I finally get this one, which looks like it's going to come out in January 2006.
A lot of the mystery wasn't really clearly explained, I don't know if that's because of the cliff hanger and it's going to be better explained in the next book, but I had a lot questions still unanswered.
Overall these books have really improved. I hated the first one. Thought the 2nd was ok and really like the 3rd one. I likeed this one until the end. So if you don't mind a cliff hanger at the end of a book, this has great mystery with lots of interesting and different characters.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well, maybe 3 ½ -, August 2, 2005
This review is from: Death Takes a Honeymoon (Carnegie Kincaid, Book 4) (Mass Market Paperback)
I loved the first book in this series Veiled Threats, as well as the second, Died to Match. Somehow I missed number three (which lack I will immediately address) so I was pleased and delighted to find this one - the fourth in the series. Unfortunately, I don't think it matched the very high quality established by the author in the first two books. The writing, however, is still crisp and clear, as always.
I did like the shift of location-it's always fun when a series can move away from its home base, even just for one book. It's obvious that Ms. Donnelly knows Idaho as well as she does the Seattle area, and she excels at putting the reader into the geography. Also, meeting friends from a few years back adds to Carnegie Kinkaid's persona, helping us to understand how and why she became what she is today. The history of the area adds greatly to the story. It is almost casually sprinkled in here and there, and is never boring.
It's fun to learn about new businesses-who'd have thought that wedding planners needed to know so much about apparently everything? Thank goodness, Carnegie does, and is easily able to step into the breach when the previously-engaged planner goes temporarily AWOL from the very celebrity wedding of one of Carnegie's friends. Although she'd been invited to the wedding, Carnegie really hadn't planned to attend, until a distress call from another friend prompted her to go back home to Idaho for the event.
Summers in the west are rife with forest fires, and Ms. Donnelly has obviously studied the situation with great care, as her descriptions of the smoke jumpers and fire fighting ring very true. It's a tension-filled life, to be sure, and this book is a terrific tribute to those brave folks who embrace it with gusto.
Although I did enjoy this book, I kept getting the notion that it was almost two stories that had to be compressed into one, leaving out an awful lot of the author's ordinary attention to detail. We do get to see more of Carnegie's Mom-and kudos to the author for making this older woman attractive, smart and sexy! Some of the other regulars Boris and Aaron (Carnegie's on-again/off-again lover) are already known to us, but still we get more little tid-bits of their past. There are so many new folks in this book, however, about whom we might like to know more, and they get short shrift.
The ending is appalling. I felt so cheated, which is the major reason why I could only give the book 3-well, maybe 3 ½-- stars. Of course, once I've read book three, I might better understand why the author did this. Or maybe not. One thing is for sure-it won't keep me from reading more of this author!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
First of all, let me say I disliked the ending, September 15, 2005
This review is from: Death Takes a Honeymoon (Carnegie Kincaid, Book 4) (Mass Market Paperback)
But you'll have to read the book to get to it. And it's an aspect of the ending that isn't all that relevant to the actual mystery, which was well-plotted and hard to guess. No, it's related to the romantic life of our heroine-detective, Carnegie. Carnegie is a wedding planner, who thinks she's going to attend the wedding of an old friend (now a movie star) but when she arrives in Idaho, finds her mother has volunteered her to help out. The official wedding planner is very high profile and not very present, so you can imagine how much falls on Carnegie's capable shoulders. In addition to the wedding, Carnegie arrives shortly after the death of a cousin (not someone she's close to) who was a fire jumper (fireman who parachutes into forest fires). His death is suspicious, and she starts to poke around to see what she can find out. She's also trying to get back a necklace belonging to another old friend -- and the last person who had the necklace was the firefighter who died. Then there's Carnegie's own romantic life -- her boyfriend refuses to come with her to the wedding -- they've been having some problems ever since she accidentally used the M word in front of him. He's commitment phobic.
This was a very nice little mystery -- well plotted, engaging, likeable characters, picturesque setting very aptly described. But the ending...
Well, you'll have to read it for yourself and see what you think.
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