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| Sweet Revenge | 
 enlarge | Author: Diane Mott Davidson
Publisher: Avon
Category: Book
Buy New: $7.99 (18.81 RON)
Avg. Customer Rating:  69 reviews
Sales Rank: 9229
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 006052734X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060527341
ASIN: 006052734X
Publication Date: September 1, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Promotion: Buy 4 eligible items in the 4-for-3 promotion offered by Amazon.com and get 1 of them free. Terms and Conditions
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 When Good Series Go Bad October 12, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This series used to be one of my favorites, but now it's gotten so bad that it's nearly unreadable.
The cooking/catering used to be a nice aside to the storyline. However, now it's taken over half the book with page after page after page dedicated to minute details about food storage, food preparation, food service and food cleanup. I found myself skipping over chunks at a time and not missing anything.
As many others have said, the book was also extremely repetitive with Goldy constantly stopping to recap what she'd learned. Over and over and over we had to read the same thing about one of the most boring subjects I've ever come across -- maps.
Goldy has also turned into a blithering idiot who can't seem to stand on her own two feet without constant reassurances from Tom. In one scene, she's driving on an icy interstate in a snowstorm and is hesitant to answer her phone in such bad driving conditions. However, after she does so and finds out it's Tom, she proceeds to not only keep talking to him, but to simper to him about how much she misses him and then call him back right after they hang up because he didn't tell her he loved her. Ugh. I nearly put the book down then and there.
And what's up with Tom? Most law enforcement professionals don't allow amateurs to help them with their cases. Not only does Tom allow it, but he encourages it -- telling Goldy confidential information, sending her out to talk to people, not saying a word to her when she does something idiotic like sneak into a crime scene and fall down a hill. His fellow police officers also don't do anything to discourage this -- for example, whisking Goldy away after she's just recklessly totalled her best friend's car and then dropping her off at the end of her street to walk home, which coincidentally just happens to be the scene of another murder Tom is investigating. The whole thing just became ludicrous after awhile.
DMD has made a nice living off this series, but when it's gotten as sloppy and bad as it has, it may be time to move on.
 Review of "Sweet Revenge" October 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The female-sleuth here is Colorado caterer Goldy Schulz. The premise of this book is that Goldy is investigating the murder of Drew Wellington, the former district attorney. She was setting up for a breakfast she was to cater in the city library when she and the head librarian find the dead body of Mr. Wellington. Of course Goldy has to try to figure out what happened, even though her police detective-husband Tom reminds her to stay out of the case and let the police handle it.
And there is another mystery to be solved: Goldy also thinks she sees a woman who is supposed to be dead named Sandee Brisbane. Sandee murdered Goldy's ex-husband and then committed suicide. Now Goldy wonders if Sandee really did commit suicide? Did they ever find her body? Why was Sandee, or someone who looked just like her, in the library right before they find Mr. Wellington's body?
This book is well written and I would recommend it. The ending is a real page-turner and is quite clever. We discover, along with Goldy, just 'who done it'.
Sweet Revenge September 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Book arrived much sooner than expected & was in like new condition. I was extremely pleased with both the service & the book. Thanks.
 Goldy's in hot water again! September 25, 2008
Diane Mott Davidson manages to combine my two favorite things; a good cozy mystery and food. I enjoyed my time with Goldy and the gang as she tries to solve the mystery of a dead woman who seems oddly alive. Davidson captures well the teen angst phase in Goldy's son, Arch. The mystery was a bit slow going at times, but the culinary info kept me interested. (I tried out the Chicken Divine and found it quite good.) I do think husband Tom would do well to believe his wife when she tells him she's onto something. The woman has solved her share of mysteries, for goodness sake and he was downright condescending at times. The Sandee Brisbane thread was a tad heavy for a cozy, but as someone who has been guilty of interjecting some depth into my own cozies, I admire her for adding some layers. All in all, another satisfying read from Davidson.
 This book was so bad I finally quit reading it about 40 pages before the end. September 20, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I no longer CARED who-done-it, I just wanted it to be over. I sometimes think successful authors publish really mediocre books either a)because they're under pressure to come up with a book and they just don't have it in them to write it, or b) they're so successful that they can get away with things the publisher/editor would not allow a less successful writer to get away with.
This book seemed self-indulgent -- not edited by an objective editor. It was way too long, all other issues aside. I heard way too much about wonderful Goldy and her wonderful family in her wonderful town cooking wonderful meals and solving mysteries that stump the police, and way too little about the actual mystery.
I got really tired hearing about Goldy's wonderful but mouthy son Arch, and even found myself wishing that he and his two buddies were upstairs cooking an illegal substance instead of cleaning his room (we hear about that activity throughout the book) -- it would have livened the book up. I also fantasized Goldy discovering that her husband is having an affair -- anything to make this book less of Goldy's-wonderful-life and more dramatic.
Arch wanting to go snowboarding and what the place he snowboarded was like should not have been repeated over and over again. And it's not just that snowboarding stuff that got repeated several times. The author regularly summarized the same material over and over again. I couldn't decide if she was getting paid by the word and had to pad the book (to pay the mortgage?), or really thought the reader was too dumb to follow along without frequent repetition. Or maybe the book was meant to be published as a serial in a magazine? Because from time to time, there was the kind of summing up that allows readers who haven't read any of the previous chapters to follow along anyway.
I love mysteries, and I love cozies, but this one should never have been published. I rarely write a review that gives a book less than 3 stars, but I had to make an exception on this one. In fact, I wish I could get back the money I spent on the book -- shouldn't books come with guarantees or your money back?
I haven't read any other in the series by this author, but this one discourages me from wanting to reading earlier books about Goldy, since by page 400 or so -- it's quite a long book for a cozy mystery -- I was bored silly hearing about Goldy and her world. I get the idea, however, that her earlier books was much better, so I may eventually give one of them a try.
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