Customer Reviews

Invitation To Murder: A Card-Making Mystery

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

 

 

Jennifer Shane has recently opened a card-making business, Custom Card Creations. Her big sister has a scrapbooking business down the street and their brother is the town sheriff. Neither of them thought her store was a good decision. But, she did it any way.

Jennifer overhears a murder on the phone. Her brother says there isn't much he can do with the sketchy information she has.

In the meantime, Jennifer lands her first custom order. She is thrilled as there hasn't been much traffic in her store.

Jennifer receives a threatening note. Her sister and brother worry she's in danger. So she invites her eccentric aunt Lillian to help her in the store. Jennifer begins teaching Lillian about card-making. Lillian takes to it right away.

It turns out the victim was to be the maid of honor in the wedding Jennifer is designing invitations for. Jennifer ends up trying to figure out who the murdered is. She finds herself with more threats.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Jennifer and Lillian are a great team. I can't wait to read about more of their escapades. The detail in the books about card making is great too. Such a fun read.

I highly recommend this book.

In the resort town of Rebel Forge, Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Jennifer Shane opens up Custom Card Creations after failing to persuade her older sister Sara Lynn to expand her shop Forever Memories. While waiting for her first customer, she receives a strange phone call asking for Annie followed by a scream of terror and silence. When her brother Sheriff Bradford arrives to make peace between his sisters, Jennifer tells him about the strange phone call. Not long afterward she gets another call, but silence greets her on the other end.

When she goes home, another odd call occurs. The next day she receives an envelop with only her first name written on the outside with no postage or other marks; inside is a letter in which someone tells her to forget what she heard or she will be next. She shows the note to Bradford who leaves her to investigate the death of a young woman. Trying to start a business, Jennifer has inadvertently been yanked into a homicide all because of a wrong number.

INVITATION TO MURDER is a wonderful police procedural-amateur sleuth investigative tale. The story line combines family rivalry and nurturing inside an intriguing who-done-it as an innocent Jennifer is unwillingly yanked into the middle of a homicide investigation. The three siblings make the mystery work as they seem like real siblings loving and arguing with one another even as Bradford works the case while Jennifer tries to keep out but fate pushes her back into the center. This is a bright cozy that fans will welcome.

Harriet Klausner

Very light reading; you'll finish quickly. At times, I wondered if I had already read this book because it was so similar (in the way the plot developed) to one other book by Bright.

I love this series so far. This first book in the series, Invitation To Murder is great! With cozies it is important not to try and analyze too much and to just enjoy. I dont think it is such a far out idea that someone could make a living on a card making shop. I would definately recommend this to people who want a light and fun read.

Is there really such a demand for custom hand-designed cards that someone could invest their life savings in a business and make a living supporting themselves out of it? And is this type of business really conducive to an amateur sleuth series? It's nice that the author has a hobby she enjoys so much that she wants to turn it into a series, but I just don't see how this series can go very far with this premise.

I thought the mystery itself was pretty straightfoward, with the culprit obvious almost from the beginning. I also found some of the character relationships silly -- Bradford and his aunt Lillian don't talk because she ate his banana pudding when he was a kid? Sara Lynn leaves her husband to move in with her sister who's in danger? I also found it a tad annoying how the characters always referred to each other by their relationship rather than their names since there weren't all that many of them and they're all related to each other.

I'll give the next installment a shot, but I just don't see this theme holding my interest for very long.

It was different from the ones I usually read. But I enjoyed and liked the instrucions for making a card. Gives me a new craft to start working on. Will enjoy reading the others in the series

A rubber stamp store in Western New York was started just this way and its busy as all get out, and the owner makes a FINE living!!