Blazing Summer by Denise Grover SwankMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Three and a half stars.
Summer Butler was a teenage TV star, famous as an amateur detective with the catchphrase "Gotcha". Her mother mismanaged her career and stole her money and her co-star Connor persuaded her to fake a sex tape which cancelled the show and tanked her career.
In the first book in this new series Summer is desperate to avoid bankruptcy so she pitches a reality TV show in which she plays amateur detective, the TV mogul buys the idea but embellishes it - she'll do her detecting in her old home town of Sweet Briar, Alabama, the wacky small town with its own Facebook gossip page and her estranged grandmother and cousins, oh and just to add a cherry to the icing on the cake, her mother lords it up there on Summer's earnings. In the first TV show Summer solved a murder, despite the best efforts of her producer (the evil Lauren) to make Summer look ridiculous and she has been brought back for a second series as co-producer.
Everything should be rosy for Summer, producer rights, successful first series, reconnecting with her childhood sweetheart but things never go to plan. First, she still wants to clear her cousin of setting the first that killed her parents and grandfather, Lauren is playing dirty and there's an arsonist on the loose.
With a portfolio of loser, boring matters to investigate Summer confronts car thieves, cheating wives and pet alligators, but her attempts to clear Dixie's name lead her into direct conflict with some very powerful people and endanger the lives of those closest to her.
Confession, when I started reading this on my Kindle I accidentally started in the middle of the book (at the really exciting bit) and didn't realise for a while. That threw me for a while and I found it difficult to start back at the beginning. Which is all a big excuse why the review is a little bit late.
I liked this but I do feel that there are too many villains for such a small sweet town. How realistic would it be that half of the police force are corrupt/ incompetent when the citizens are so good? This reminds me of NA/YA TV series like the OC or 90210 where everyone has drama, drama, drama. Everyone knows everyone else's business because Maybelline posts everything to her Facebook page, but at the same time the town is chock-full of secrets.
This is full of small town Southern humour, sweet tea and gossip, yet there are also crimes, drugs and cover-ups which lurk beneath the surface. If you can suspend disbelief it is a fun detective read.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
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