Another Book Review: Aurora Teagarden Series

A promise is a promise, so here I am ready to deliver.

We all know and love the Sookie Stackhouse books written by Charlaine Harris. But let's talk about Harris's other series. First, there's the Harper Connelly series (woman can find dead people and tell how they died). I've read all four books in this series and enjoyed them in a mindless sort of way. Great bathtub reading.

But then there's the Aurora Teagarden Mystery series. Here's a rundown on each book.

Real Murders: Um, yeah. This is a boring book, plus there are like eighty million characters introduced in the span of the first three chapters and my little brain got confused. So. Yeah. I only read the second book in the series because I had purchased it at the same time as the first one. Not a great introduction of the main character or, frankly, to the setting or general theme of the series.

A Bone to Pick: Now here's where the series starts to pick up for me. A not so close friend (one of the approximately eighty zillion characters introducted in the previous book) of Roe's dies and leaves Roe a house. In the house, Roe finds a skull, and then fun and shenanigans follow. I started to like Roe with this book and, perhaps more importantly, started to wonder what else would happen in Lawrenceton.

Three Bedrooms, One Corpse: This book focuses on Roe's strange internal debate between a nice man and an evil man. I bet you'll never guess who she goes for. Whatever, I feel like slapping her throughout the entire book, the way you do whenever your friends make stupid decisions, but I guess it's real life. In book form, of course.

The Julius House: Now she's married to the evil man. Ergh. This whole marriage storyline bothers me immensely. However, I really, really, really enjoyed the mystery in this one and the resolution was fun. I think this is the book that solidified my reading the rest of the series. Before this book, I could take Roe or leave her. But with this book, I knew I'd keep reading the series forever.

Dead Over Heels: Oh, yeah. The evil husband. This comes up a lot in this book. Roe lets herself get pushed around some and I want to tell her to grow up. Man, this is a lot like real life.

A Fool and His Honey: I totally skipped this book. Downloading to the Kindle right now. This does explain why I was so completely confused by the beginning of the next book. Ha! Reading books out of order in a series does complicate matters.

Last Scene Alive: I was going to write that the beginning of this book confused the hell out of me, but now it becomes super clear that since I skipped a book, I am an idiot. On the bright side, we no longer have to deal with the evil husband and a sexy suitor from the past comes back. Tres exciting!! I liked this book. It had everything a girl could hope for in her cheesy novels.

Poppy Done to Death: This is, as of this writing, the final book in the series. I haven't read it yet. So, um, yeah, downloading. Until I wrote this post, I swear I thought I had read the entire series. Ha! I know nothing! The reviews on amazon are fair to middling, so I'm going to go ahead and read it!!