Rating: 
Summary: AWESOME Debut Novel - First in Anticipated New Series
Review: Sheer delight to read. Enticing from the first chapter and keeps you reading. A great "Who Dunnit" which will suprise you at the end who the actual killer is. GREAT and a definate must read. Author Susan McGrath is a delight. She's written back to me to let me know that her 2nd installment to this new series "THE GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER", will be out in February of 2005. I can't wait. Please DO buy this book, you will not be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME Debut Novel - First in Anticipated New Series
Review: Sheer delight to read. Enticing from the first chapter and keeps you reading. A great "Who Dunnit" which will suprise you at the end who the actual killer is. GREAT and a definate must read. Author Susan McGrath is a delight. She's written back to me to let me know that her 2nd installment to this new series "THE GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER", will be out in February of 2005. I can't wait. Please DO buy this book, you will not be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: DON'T MISS THIS ONE!
Review: This new series is definitely a winner! Andy Kendricks is a gal we'd all love to have for a friend. Especially if we get into trouble! The lengths Andy goes to for her friend Molly is incredible and more fun than I can say without giving the plot away. Andy's mother is a hoot, and I hope she appears in each sequel. Don't miss this! BLUE BLOOD will keep you turning pages with a smile on your face. I read this in two sittings, that's how much I loved it!
Rating:
Summary: DON'T MISS THIS ONE!
Review: This new series is definitely a winner! Andy Kendricks is a gal we'd all love to have for a friend. Especially if we get into trouble! The lengths Andy goes to for her friend Molly is incredible and more fun than I can say without giving the plot away. Andy's mother is a hoot, and I hope she appears in each sequel. Don't miss this! BLUE BLOOD will keep you turning pages with a smile on your face. I read this in two sittings, that's how much I loved it!
Rating: 
Summary: Fun read but unchallenging as a mystery
Review: _Blue Blood_ is an amusing little story with an interesting narrator. Andy (Andrea) Kendricks is an upper-crust Texas society girl, who decides that charity events, fund-raising, and hunt balls are not her thing, and declines to "come out" despite her mother's plans. Now she's living the "normal" life, despite her mom's attempts to pull her back into the society whirl. Andy's mom, Cissy Blevins Kendricks, is formidable; doing everything she can to introduce Andy to the "right" people, especially the right husband. The book begins with Andy in a restaurant with her mother and yet another prospective beau; the evening was presented to Andy as a "night out with just us girls." Andy is unstoppable in her own way: she will smile at her mother but do things her own way and in her own good time. Then Andy hears from her best friend from her prep school days. Molly never fit in either, being the "scholarship girl" from a series of foster homes. The girls went off to art college together but Molly ran off to Paris with her boyfriend, got pregnant, and was dumped. Ten years later, Molly is calling Andy for help: she is accused of murdering her boss at the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. The restaurant is a hillbilly version of Hooters, and the boss not only hit on the staff frequently, he seemed to have plenty of enemies. But the police are convinced that they have arrested the culprit and Molly is denied bail, leaving Andy to take care of Molly's young son. Andy isn't an investigator, she's a website designer. She asks her mother to hire a lawyer for Molly, and mother reluctantly complies. But the young man doesn't believe Molly is innocent, and doesn't seem to be trying very hard to help her. So it's up to Andy to find the real killer. I enjoyed McBride's descriptions and characters more than the underlying mystery. Andy is haunted by her father's untimely death (right before her planned debut), and clearly has more in common with him than her society mother. But there weren't enough possible killers in the book to mislead me, the mark of a good whodunnit. I was able to identify the guilty party far sooner than I should have because one clue was far too obvious. The bad guys were coarsely drawn, with little nuance or any redeeming features. And too many intermediate clues were clear to the reader well before Andy picked up on them. I also felt McBride didn't convince me of Andy's expertise in her career as a website designer. Someone comfortable with digital photography and HTML code (or even MS FrontPage) should have had more computer skills and savvy than Andy ever demonstrated. The book could have worked just as well with Andy as a freelance writer or an accountant without changing anything else in the plot! This a good, mindless, fun read, suitable for beaches or airplanes. But as a mystery it is lacking. mad-haus 1 March 2004
Rating:
Summary: Fun read but unchallenging as a mystery
Review: _Blue Blood_ is an amusing little story with an interesting narrator. Andy (Andrea) Kendricks is an upper-crust Texas society girl, who decides that charity events, fund-raising, and hunt balls are not her thing, and declines to "come out" despite her mother's plans. Now she's living the "normal" life, despite her mom's attempts to pull her back into the society whirl. Andy's mom, Cissy Blevins Kendricks, is formidable; doing everything she can to introduce Andy to the "right" people, especially the right husband. The book begins with Andy in a restaurant with her mother and yet another prospective beau; the evening was presented to Andy as a "night out with just us girls." Andy is unstoppable in her own way: she will smile at her mother but do things her own way and in her own good time. Then Andy hears from her best friend from her prep school days. Molly never fit in either, being the "scholarship girl" from a series of foster homes. The girls went off to art college together but Molly ran off to Paris with her boyfriend, got pregnant, and was dumped. Ten years later, Molly is calling Andy for help: she is accused of murdering her boss at the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. The restaurant is a hillbilly version of Hooters, and the boss not only hit on the staff frequently, he seemed to have plenty of enemies. But the police are convinced that they have arrested the culprit and Molly is denied bail, leaving Andy to take care of Molly's young son. Andy isn't an investigator, she's a website designer. She asks her mother to hire a lawyer for Molly, and mother reluctantly complies. But the young man doesn't believe Molly is innocent, and doesn't seem to be trying very hard to help her. So it's up to Andy to find the real killer. I enjoyed McBride's descriptions and characters more than the underlying mystery. Andy is haunted by her father's untimely death (right before her planned debut), and clearly has more in common with him than her society mother. But there weren't enough possible killers in the book to mislead me, the mark of a good whodunnit. I was able to identify the guilty party far sooner than I should have because one clue was far too obvious. The bad guys were coarsely drawn, with little nuance or any redeeming features. And too many intermediate clues were clear to the reader well before Andy picked up on them. I also felt McBride didn't convince me of Andy's expertise in her career as a website designer. Someone comfortable with digital photography and HTML code (or even MS FrontPage) should have had more computer skills and savvy than Andy ever demonstrated. The book could have worked just as well with Andy as a freelance writer or an accountant without changing anything else in the plot! This a good, mindless, fun read, suitable for beaches or airplanes. But as a mystery it is lacking. mad-haus 1 March 2004
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