Review

Jaymie Leighton is feeling stressed out. She is busy with her growing picnic basket business as well as writing a new column for the local newspaper. In addition to that, she still hasn’t given up on her dream to write a cookbook full of vintage recipes modified for modern cooks and kitchens. However, she has temporarily retreated to her family’s cottage on Heartbreak Island, outside the mainland town of Queensville, Michigan. Jaymie is trying to get out of the middle of disagreements between her mother and her software mogul boyfriend’s mother.  Jaymie’s mother can be difficult, but Daniel’s mother has made it clear she thinks her son can do much better than Jaymie. While trying to relax on the island, Jaymie ends up in the middle of a murder investigation when she finds the body of Urban Dobrinskie and her friends and neighbors Garnet and Ruby Redmond become the prime suspects.

The Vintage Kitchen mysteries are excellent, although this installment isn’t quite as enjoyable as the first two books in this series. Jaymie is as likeable as ever, but some of the sub-plots were a bit tedious. To Jaymie’s credit, her character is able to pull off a believable friendship with her ex-boyfriend’s new fiancée Heidi without looking like a pushover. Jaymie’s interest in vintage cookware makes her unique and her curiosity and intelligence make her a natural as an amateur sleuth. Even though police zero in on Dobrinskie’s feud with the Redmonds, Dobrinskie made plenty of other enemies, and Jaymie is the perfect person to get to the truth. Her Yorkie-Poo Hoppy is back again and is as cute as ever and is the perfect sidekick for Jaymie.

On the downside, the two mothers, Jaymie’s mother Joy and Daniel’s mother, play large parts in this book and unfortunately neither is very likeable. They are both opinionated and controlling and their characters quickly become irritating to the point they start to take away from the story. This time around, I didn’t see any sparks between Jaymie and Daniel, and in fact saw some potential red flags in their relationship. He seems very arrogant and blind to how his mother is treating Jaymie.  Although Jaymie seems committed to making her relationship work, I think it’s time she takes another look at the handsome detective Zack Christian who is clearly interested in Jaymie.

Since Jaymie spends much of her time on Heartbreak Island, she doesn’t have as much interaction with her sister Becca or with friends like Heidi, and I missed that in this book. The information on vintage recipes and kitchens is still interesting and helps this series stand out from other cozy series. The solution to the murder is a shocker and not what I had expected. The book has a vintage recipe at the end of the story, which is a nice touch to the book’s theme. Fans of Virginia Lowell or Joanne Fluke will want to take a trip to Heartbreak Island for Jaymie’s latest mystery.