Mainely Mysteries [Paperback]

I bought this because I love the state of Maine and I had hoped for more descriptive passages of Maine. It never happened.

The first two stories were fairly good, I like the characters and the stories and they held my interest. I agree with other reviewers, the main character, Emily, wanted to convert and turn everyone she met to followers of God. Now this isn't a bad thing in real life but in the book, it fell flat to my reading and I am a lover of Christian fiction.

The characters weren't really fleshed out and the third story was not even interesting to me, too easy to figure out and once again, not enough concentration on the main characters in the book. I know this may appeal to younger readers of Christian fiction but it isn't one I would recommend at all.

When her stepfather dies, Emily Gray returns from the big city of Manhattan
to the small town in Maine where she grew up. Her mother has decided to sell
the cottage that she raised Emily in, and Emily volunteers to get the cottage
ready for sale. But when she returns to the town after never looking back for
over a dozen years, things start to fall into place and happy memories arise.
Unfortunately, along with the warming memories also come the grueling
thoughts of her stepfather; who she'd tried to block from her mind all this
time. Despite the dreadful thoughts Emily and her high school sweetheart,
Nate, have found each other and think they still may have feelings for each
other. One day Nate is delivering mail, just as he does every day, but this time
he takes Emily along promising to drop her off at her cabin that's also on the
island. Things get complicated when they find the old man who lives on the
far side of the island lying dead on his wood floor with blood pooling around
him. And when the police announce it's a homicide investigation, Nate and
Emily will stop at nothing to solve the mystery of the old man's death.

There are two other mysteries that accompany the first mystery. They read as
a series but with different mysteries, just in the same book, and follow the
same characters in the same setting.

A huge problem I found with this book is that none of the characters
were fully developed. The book suffered in a few crucial categories such as,
relations with others were never clear enough, the beginnings were
insignificant to the endings, and the most important element the stories
lacked were showing motive for certain characters.

"Mainely Mysteries" is a book with religion, and I knew that when I chose to
read it. Religion in some books can be truly inspirational, but the way I felt
reading about the religion in this book was anything but the feeling of
inspiration. I felt that throughout the book all Emily tried to do was convert
people to her own religion. She would pray constantly, which in real life I can
understand, but it's not good for a book. It was all talk; there was nothing
that showed me God was there for her. But it did show me that she was a
very persuasive girl that converted every person she could to her own
religion...

I feel like the book was of a stereotypical Christian woman, who openly
asked anyone she could to convert to her faith. I also feel like the characters
were not developed and the reader was poorly informed when it came to
knowing motives- which is a MUST for mysteries.

Reviewed by a young adult student reviewer
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Have been reading the Mainely Mystery Series with our book club. We have all enjoyed reading each story. Susan Page Davis has yet to write a book I don't like. Her daughter, Megan Elaine Davis, is new to me but together they have written three really nice stories. At times Emily and Nate don't seem to be as old as they are but that doesn't take away from the story. Would I recommend it to others? YES!!!

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 4 reviews  2.8 out of 5 stars