I read and reviewed the previous book (and the first of the series) on the blog earlier last year.
On reading my own review of the first book, I have to say I managed to convey my thoughts as precisely as I could and a lot of the sentiment carried forward with this book as well.
Stella is Nantucket’s local Candle lady, but as the story begins, she is in France with her mother, and they are play-acting the concept of the fancy Parisian ladies. On a side note, the city wasn’t for me, but I could still empathize with Stella’s excitement. She rarely got to spend quality time with her mother, who has a severe case of wanderlust. There was the sly mention of the unknown father again in this, and I smell a future book focusing on the revelations that might go with that back story. The glitzy work cum vacation ends with a dead body and a hastily wrapped up return to their hometown. Once there, it seems like the trouble followed them all the way. The plot was a little outlandish but made more sense than some cozies with random reasons for the lead digging around trying to solve the case. There are multiple suspects, many odd occurrences and a lot more revelations about the people involved than I thought we would be given by the time the end rolled around.
The writing and narrative styles continue to make the series and the inhabitants feel three dimensional, and any reasoning they gave for the story going the way can be deemed acceptable.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience of this book.
Superfluous Reading 