The Accidental Florist

May 28, 2008 - The Accidental Florist (Jill Churchill). Suburban housewife-turned-author Jane Jeffry resurfaces in a book that, unfortunately, continues the downward trend that began a couple books ago. This series has slipped so much, in fact, that I will not continue reading it.

As has been the pattern of late, Jane is busy living her life while Mel, her police detective boyfriend, does his job and solves murders. True to life, I suppose, but not particularly interesting if the premise of the series is a housewife who solves crimes.

Never mind the title of the book. It has very, very little to do with what actually takes place. Based on the back cover, it appears that Jane and her BFF Shelley will become tangled up in the murder of someone connected to a self-defense class they are taking. True enough, a young woman in the class is beaten to death. But, her boyfriend is arrested about a page later. Case closed. Then, several pages later, the instructor is bumped off. Mel handles this case and, with help from an Internet-savvy assistant, somehow manages to find the culprits even though we never find out much about the instructor herself or why the killer(s) wanted her dead.

In this 200 page book, only a few paragraphs are devoted to the above murders. Most of the space is taken up with the minutiae of Jane's life. She has no time to meddle in murder since she's too busy a) finishing her second novel and starting a third one; b) proposing to Mel and planning not one but two weddings; c) shopping for wedding attire; d) putting an addition on the house - in record time, I might add; e) dealing with the death of a family pet; f) dealing with her former mother-in-law, who is apparently scheming to keep Jane from her share of the profits from the family business; and g) dealing with her future mother-in-law who is trying to plan the wedding out from under her. It's Jane's life, so I suppose it's interesting to her. As for me, I'm not interested in reading any more about it.