From Publishers Weekly
It's hard to believe that the author of the Alex Bernier books (Ecstasy, etc., under her maiden name of Beth Saulnier) could produce this awkward mystery. Like a gawky teenager, there's some appeal here, but the self-consciousness and gaffes make it a little painful to witness. Isabelle Leonard has moved to New York City to be with her future husband only to be left at the altar. Broke and friendless, she lands a job at Becky Belden Multimedia, the eponymous Becky being a cross between Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart. Isabelle quickly becomes aware that employees are turning up dead left and right, a fact that apparently no one else has noted. Her instant best friend, a stereotypical gay co-worker, Trevor Hopkins, offers support but no help and, inevitably, meets an unfortunate fate, as does Isabelle's immediate boss. Meanwhile, handsome Max Collins, a Becky Belden executive, becomes a love interest tainted with a predictable measure of mystery and suspicion. Between Isabelle's juvenile handling of men in bars and her fiction writing, she picks up remarkably few clues, but eventually finds herself in an all-too-predictable showdown. Isabelle seems like a sweet kid, but she's a little tedious, and she's found herself in a story plagued with stiff and obvious plotting.
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Bloom's freewheeling debut introduces a captivating protagonist named Isabelle Leonard. When her fiance dumps her at the altar, the feisty Isabelle doesn't fall apart. Instead, she dances on the table at her reception. Her actions earn a front-page mention in a major New York newspaper, and in the resulting 15 minutes of fame, decorating maven Becky Belden hires Isabelle to work at her magazine--part of Belden's vast media empire. It seems like a dream job until Isabelle's boss dies under odd circumstances, and Isabelle discovers that many of Becky's employees have died recently. Soon, Isabelle herself is targeted, and in typical hardheaded fashion, she begins a zealous investigation into the deaths. The more clues she discovers, the more likely it seems that her new executive boyfriend might be the murderer, or the one ordering the murders. Bloom adds just enough serious moments to keep the story from becoming too frothy, but Isabelle's quirky personality allows for plenty of fun. As the broke-and-beautiful heroine dashes through Manhattan to avoid being murdered, readers may be tempted to take up the media's cry of "Give 'em hell, Isabelle!" A first-rate flight of fancy. Jenny McLarin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
