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Daring Finds #1
Dipped, Stripped and Dead
A Dyce Dare Mystery
When she was six, Dyce Dare wanted to be a ballerina, but she couldn't stop tripping over her own feet. Then she wanted to be a lion tamer, but Fluffy, the cat, would not obey her. Which is why at the age of twenty nine she's dumpster diving, kind of. She's looking for furniture to keep her refinishing business going, because she would someday she would like to feed herself and her young son something better than pancakes.
Unfortunately, as has come to be her expectation, things go disastrously wrong. She finds a half melted corpse in a dumpster. This will force her to do what she never wanted to do: solve a crime.
Life is just about to get crazy... er... crazier. But at least at the end of the tunnel there might be a relationship with a very nice Police Officer.
When she was six, Dyce Dare wanted to be a ballerina, but she couldn't stop tripping over her own feet. Then she wanted to be a lion tamer, but Fluffy, the cat, would not obey her. Which is why at the age of twenty nine she's dumpster diving, kind of. She's looking for furniture to keep her refinishing business going, because she would someday she would like to feed herself and her young son something better than pancakes.
Unfortunately, as has come to be her expectation, things go disastrously wrong. She finds a half melted corpse in a dumpster. This will force her to do what she never wanted to do: solve a crime.
Life is just about to get crazy... er... crazier. But at least at the end of the tunnel there might be a relationship with a very nice Police Officer.
217 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2009
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1035 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
January 27, 2011
Not a fan. I can only hope it got better, but I read about 120 pages and gave up. I got tired of her unique name, her kid's unique name (Enoch? Really?), her ridiculousness - hey look, her bestest friend in the whole world is rich, but she's got to keep evidence in a murder rather than turning it over to the police because she can't afford to feed her kid. Because her ex (with a stupid nickname she insists on continuing throughout the book) apparently doesn't pay her child support.
Oh right, and she refuses to accept suggestions and common sense because someone else suggested it to her. And her toddler knows the alphabet, but can't speak. Because he's ridiculously intelligent. Apparently a fluke of nature because neither of his parents are.
And, how does a cop afford a really pricey restaurant to take her to on what appears to be a first date, even though she's too stupid to realize it.
It amounts to a main character who is too stupid to live and I've read enough books like that.
Oh right, and she refuses to accept suggestions and common sense because someone else suggested it to her. And her toddler knows the alphabet, but can't speak. Because he's ridiculously intelligent. Apparently a fluke of nature because neither of his parents are.
And, how does a cop afford a really pricey restaurant to take her to on what appears to be a first date, even though she's too stupid to realize it.
It amounts to a main character who is too stupid to live and I've read enough books like that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2011
This book had way to much going on to fit into the 280 pages. Ben and Cas were likable and interesting. Dyce would've been likable and interesting if there hadn't been so much drama. Between the fact that all she ate was pancakes (which is repeated regularly), her crazy parents, her weird name and how she got it, her annoying ex-husband and his even more annoying new wife, her son's selective mutism, her ratty apartment, her crappy car, her dislike of Ben's crazy boyfriend and her increasingly to stupid to live actions which by the end pass TSTL and go straight to plain moronic it was just way to much. The plot and the important characters got lost in the overabundace of detail. It's too bad because I liked the foundation of the story. I may pick up another Hyatt book but it won't be a first choice.
March 9, 2012
This was an odd one. Lately I've been going through these cozies like candy, too fast to bother entering here. But for some reason, this was a very easy book for me to put down and go do something else for a while, so it lasted longer.
I liked almost everything about it: the main character's personality, her gay best friend, her crazy readaholic parents (I could see myself as them in some alternate universe...), her kid, her refinishing work, her crush on Officer Wolfe, the style of dialogue.
The one thing that annoyed me was that the main character was stupid in idiotically persisting to investigate things without telling anyone where she was going, withholding information from the police, etc etc. Basically, everything she did to advance the plot, she was stupid about. On the other hand, if she hadn't been stupid, there wouldn't have been much mystery going on... but most authors manage to give their investigators more reasonable motivations, a better sense of self-preservation, or some constraints that actually force them into taking chances.
But other than the fact that I kept yelling "Oh don't be an IDIOT, woman!!" in the back of my mind, I really enjoyed the book. Book 2 is sitting in my library bag ready to start tomorrow.
I liked almost everything about it: the main character's personality, her gay best friend, her crazy readaholic parents (I could see myself as them in some alternate universe...), her kid, her refinishing work, her crush on Officer Wolfe, the style of dialogue.
The one thing that annoyed me was that the main character was stupid in idiotically persisting to investigate things without telling anyone where she was going, withholding information from the police, etc etc. Basically, everything she did to advance the plot, she was stupid about. On the other hand, if she hadn't been stupid, there wouldn't have been much mystery going on... but most authors manage to give their investigators more reasonable motivations, a better sense of self-preservation, or some constraints that actually force them into taking chances.
But other than the fact that I kept yelling "Oh don't be an IDIOT, woman!!" in the back of my mind, I really enjoyed the book. Book 2 is sitting in my library bag ready to start tomorrow.
December 28, 2010
Despite my desire to like an author who shares my first name, this was a tremendously formulaic mystery novel blended with the first third of a romance novel. I found the mystery itself predictable, the characters two dimensional, and the author's style unreliable at best. Unfortunately, she had a few moments of pleasing wit, which made it that much harder to write the book off as not worth reading. Alas, overall, it was a waste of time.
November 8, 2009
I liked this new series. The main character is saucy and independent. It makes me want to go out and try to refinish a piece of furniture.
April 3, 2021
Dyce is trying to make ends meet as a single mother being stiffed on child support payments by rescuing and refinishing old furniture under the cloak of Daring Finds. But she finds a bit more than she expected after a round of dumpster diving leads to the stiffs of two rival restorers.
For a New Year post I'm working on a list of 'put it down's and 'pick it up's, listing the things that, to me, make or break a book. You can probably guess why I'm mentioning that at the beginning of a review.
Holy shit what happened? The author is witty, and her character's introspective moments are deep and enjoyable, but holy shit. I started this review when I got to chapter 6 and it's already committed 4 'put it down's. (The character's name is a pun, but it was meant as a pun and has nothing to do with her job and isn't supposed to be funny, so she gets a pass on this sin.)
The first thing you notice about this book is the author's turn of phrase. Elise Hyatt has a clever hand and is great at telling anecdotes in a character's inner voice. She'd probably do well as a biographer or autobiographer. But she is neither. She is a mystery writer. And five pages in you're still being spoon-fed the main character's history and it's a lot less charming. It's all in first person so on page 1 we get the main character's childhood. On page 3, her son and ex-husband's names. On page 4 we learn what she's doing at present and what her best friend is named. She finds the dead body on page 9. But we have no idea who the hell we're following and learning about until page 16, and by that point it's already gotten hard to care.
Nothing you learn here is relevant to the plot, and anything that is could be learned much better another way. Either Ms. Hyatt was trying to fluff it up to fill the pages or she never learned 'show, don't tell'. I hope it was the former because it's terrible to see such a good turn of phrase wasted on this mess. I counted the dialogue from pages 1-34 and it came up to 185 spoken sentences, which doesn't sound that bad until you pick the book up and read it, only to discover that the vast majority of the sentences are between one and four words long, and several are baby babble. So I went a step farther and counted the words themselves and compared them to the word length of a random full page of writing, and it came up to 2.8 pages of dialogue, leaving us 31.2 pages of description and backstory.
Actually, I'm almost positive this was all stuck in later as filler, because she repeats herself nearly verbatim pretty quickly:
'...Ben was six-three and built like an assault tank...'
(Elise Hyatt, Dipped, Stripped, and Dead, p.22)
'...Ben is six foot three and built like a Sherman tank.'
(Elise Hyatt, Dipped, Stripped, and Dead, p.33)
And for what I said before about her character's quiet moments being captivating? It's always wonderful to read about a character doing or loving something the writer also does or reads. Research can capture the reality of it (such as Meg Langslow's blacksmithing in the Meg Langslow series), but it can't convey the love and meditation of it (like Sophie Winston's cooking in the Domestic Diva series). Ms. Hyatt gets furniture restoration. When Dyce gets to work inspecting and cleaning up her find it's methodical, peaceful, and tells a lot about how this character works. But devoting an entire 13 page chapter to it is all a bit much.
Another sin: doing something stupid for stupid reasons in an important situation. She arms herself when she discovers her friend and son aren't in the house and carefully inspects the place for intruders. After the pair are found safe, they discover evidence of an actual intruder by way of her son's stuffed animal hung by the neck from a curtain rod and a meat cleaver stuck in her hacked apart table. She handwaves it away and pretends it was nothing to worry about because, I wish to God I was joking, that antique table she found tucked into a dumpster with the dead body and hid from the police might be valuable and she'll be damned if she lets the cops come confiscate it, or leaves the house empty for anyone to break in and steal it from her. Then her friend offers his own place for the mother and son to stay and we're treated to a page and a half of description of his apartment. We don't care about his fucking apartment. We're not in his fucking apartment. We're in your apartment, and someone has broken in, ransacked your kitchen knives, and stuck a meat cleaver in your table. There should be more important things on your mind than the layout of your friend's fucking loft.
But what's this? Is she going to avoid another 'put it down'? Is she actually going to do it?
'...my first reaction was that he was absolutely the ugliest man I've ever seen. (...) It was more, I thought as I looked up at him, that his features didn't seem to work together, like each was slightly at odds with the others.'
Fuck, she's actually going to do it! She's doing it!
'And in that moment, as I thought that, something happened. In between one blink and the other, one breath and the next, the man I was looking at went from being the ugliest man I'd ever seen to being the best-looking.'
Fuck, no, no don't do it-
'Overwhelmingly handsome- beautiful really, with an almost inhuman beauty that couldn't help but cause a reaction- just looking at him was kind of like being hit on the head with a mallet. All thought stopped, your mouth dropped open, and you couldn't quite remember how to speak.'
(Elise Hyatt, Dipped, Stripped, and Dead, p. 14)
...That may actually have been the absolute worst intro of a romantic lead I've ever read. Goodreads tells me I've gone through over 1500 books. Worst. Ever.
I can't believe I've finished this book, to be honest. I wanted to stop after that description of the cop. But I figured, Ms. Hyatt's put so much effort into screwing her readers over, it'd be impolite not to see what else she's got planned.
The verdict? As the story goes on the backstory lessens up a bit but you'll still be conditioned to skip paragraphes when it sounds like it's about to start up. The solution is uninteresting and the murderer acts like a silly, moustache-twirling, train-tracks-tying black and white villain. And it breaks my heart because what was good was done really good. But in the end there's just no reason to move on to book 2 with the series.
For a New Year post I'm working on a list of 'put it down's and 'pick it up's, listing the things that, to me, make or break a book. You can probably guess why I'm mentioning that at the beginning of a review.
Holy shit what happened? The author is witty, and her character's introspective moments are deep and enjoyable, but holy shit. I started this review when I got to chapter 6 and it's already committed 4 'put it down's. (The character's name is a pun, but it was meant as a pun and has nothing to do with her job and isn't supposed to be funny, so she gets a pass on this sin.)
The first thing you notice about this book is the author's turn of phrase. Elise Hyatt has a clever hand and is great at telling anecdotes in a character's inner voice. She'd probably do well as a biographer or autobiographer. But she is neither. She is a mystery writer. And five pages in you're still being spoon-fed the main character's history and it's a lot less charming. It's all in first person so on page 1 we get the main character's childhood. On page 3, her son and ex-husband's names. On page 4 we learn what she's doing at present and what her best friend is named. She finds the dead body on page 9. But we have no idea who the hell we're following and learning about until page 16, and by that point it's already gotten hard to care.
Nothing you learn here is relevant to the plot, and anything that is could be learned much better another way. Either Ms. Hyatt was trying to fluff it up to fill the pages or she never learned 'show, don't tell'. I hope it was the former because it's terrible to see such a good turn of phrase wasted on this mess. I counted the dialogue from pages 1-34 and it came up to 185 spoken sentences, which doesn't sound that bad until you pick the book up and read it, only to discover that the vast majority of the sentences are between one and four words long, and several are baby babble. So I went a step farther and counted the words themselves and compared them to the word length of a random full page of writing, and it came up to 2.8 pages of dialogue, leaving us 31.2 pages of description and backstory.
Actually, I'm almost positive this was all stuck in later as filler, because she repeats herself nearly verbatim pretty quickly:
'...Ben was six-three and built like an assault tank...'
(Elise Hyatt, Dipped, Stripped, and Dead, p.22)
'...Ben is six foot three and built like a Sherman tank.'
(Elise Hyatt, Dipped, Stripped, and Dead, p.33)
And for what I said before about her character's quiet moments being captivating? It's always wonderful to read about a character doing or loving something the writer also does or reads. Research can capture the reality of it (such as Meg Langslow's blacksmithing in the Meg Langslow series), but it can't convey the love and meditation of it (like Sophie Winston's cooking in the Domestic Diva series). Ms. Hyatt gets furniture restoration. When Dyce gets to work inspecting and cleaning up her find it's methodical, peaceful, and tells a lot about how this character works. But devoting an entire 13 page chapter to it is all a bit much.
Another sin: doing something stupid for stupid reasons in an important situation. She arms herself when she discovers her friend and son aren't in the house and carefully inspects the place for intruders. After the pair are found safe, they discover evidence of an actual intruder by way of her son's stuffed animal hung by the neck from a curtain rod and a meat cleaver stuck in her hacked apart table. She handwaves it away and pretends it was nothing to worry about because, I wish to God I was joking, that antique table she found tucked into a dumpster with the dead body and hid from the police might be valuable and she'll be damned if she lets the cops come confiscate it, or leaves the house empty for anyone to break in and steal it from her. Then her friend offers his own place for the mother and son to stay and we're treated to a page and a half of description of his apartment. We don't care about his fucking apartment. We're not in his fucking apartment. We're in your apartment, and someone has broken in, ransacked your kitchen knives, and stuck a meat cleaver in your table. There should be more important things on your mind than the layout of your friend's fucking loft.
But what's this? Is she going to avoid another 'put it down'? Is she actually going to do it?
'...my first reaction was that he was absolutely the ugliest man I've ever seen. (...) It was more, I thought as I looked up at him, that his features didn't seem to work together, like each was slightly at odds with the others.'
Fuck, she's actually going to do it! She's doing it!
'And in that moment, as I thought that, something happened. In between one blink and the other, one breath and the next, the man I was looking at went from being the ugliest man I'd ever seen to being the best-looking.'
Fuck, no, no don't do it-
'Overwhelmingly handsome- beautiful really, with an almost inhuman beauty that couldn't help but cause a reaction- just looking at him was kind of like being hit on the head with a mallet. All thought stopped, your mouth dropped open, and you couldn't quite remember how to speak.'
(Elise Hyatt, Dipped, Stripped, and Dead, p. 14)
...That may actually have been the absolute worst intro of a romantic lead I've ever read. Goodreads tells me I've gone through over 1500 books. Worst. Ever.
I can't believe I've finished this book, to be honest. I wanted to stop after that description of the cop. But I figured, Ms. Hyatt's put so much effort into screwing her readers over, it'd be impolite not to see what else she's got planned.
The verdict? As the story goes on the backstory lessens up a bit but you'll still be conditioned to skip paragraphes when it sounds like it's about to start up. The solution is uninteresting and the murderer acts like a silly, moustache-twirling, train-tracks-tying black and white villain. And it breaks my heart because what was good was done really good. But in the end there's just no reason to move on to book 2 with the series.
February 8, 2019
Murder mystery or romantic comedy?
The characters are written unevenly. They aren't quirky though they are meant to be. The main character is the messiest of them all. She spends the most of the book: rejecting help from a friend; not sharing vital information with the detective investigating the murder; drools over the detective; repeats to herself how independent she is; puts herself and 3 yr old in deadly danger with very little regret or acknowledgement of the consequences of her recklessness. Fourteen yr old acting out is how she behaves.
The detective trying to date a person of interest in a week old murder investigation, is over the top. It's very romance novel but all it introduces is a second male to come to her rescue. He overlooks her interference and kisses her to convince her that he's upset? He's overwhelmed by her quirkiness and spends the whole book trying to get her juices flowing rather than doing his job. Fortunately for him, she does his job for him.
The MC might be worth reading if there weren't a murder at the heart of the story. Her lifestyle and her concerns about rent and food were real world. Her murder investigation and flirtation were not.
The writing was OK and the furniture restoration was a fun backdrop for a story. The murder mystery, itself kept me reading after I lost interest in the main character.
I won't bother with the rest of the series. This series seems to be headed romantic crazy town.
The characters are written unevenly. They aren't quirky though they are meant to be. The main character is the messiest of them all. She spends the most of the book: rejecting help from a friend; not sharing vital information with the detective investigating the murder; drools over the detective; repeats to herself how independent she is; puts herself and 3 yr old in deadly danger with very little regret or acknowledgement of the consequences of her recklessness. Fourteen yr old acting out is how she behaves.
The detective trying to date a person of interest in a week old murder investigation, is over the top. It's very romance novel but all it introduces is a second male to come to her rescue. He overlooks her interference and kisses her to convince her that he's upset? He's overwhelmed by her quirkiness and spends the whole book trying to get her juices flowing rather than doing his job. Fortunately for him, she does his job for him.
The MC might be worth reading if there weren't a murder at the heart of the story. Her lifestyle and her concerns about rent and food were real world. Her murder investigation and flirtation were not.
The writing was OK and the furniture restoration was a fun backdrop for a story. The murder mystery, itself kept me reading after I lost interest in the main character.
I won't bother with the rest of the series. This series seems to be headed romantic crazy town.
February 17, 2019
This book has a good story, a good mystery that completely surprised me, a nice romance, and a blend of interesting characters. The only problem for me was it was a little gory in the murder details, and I didn't like putting the child in danger. I also wonder, as I have so often before, why every cozy mystery sleuth has to be divorced?
February 17, 2020
3.5 stars. Enjoyable, but a little far-fetched.
May 16, 2013
It was okay. This was one of those books I really wanted to love, but sadly didn't. Let's start off by saying what I didn't like - the TSTL moments, I wondered at times if Dyce had any sense whatsoever. I appreciate strong, unique heroine's so in some ways she did resonate with me and in other ways she came off as being dumber and more ornery than anything I've seen in a while. I swear she was being stubborn just for the sake of being stubborn sometimes. But she was a character, and at times I did enjoy her. Beyond that, I didn't enjoy the negativities that were continually pointed out - like how they barely get by, eat pancakes all the time, her name, All-ex and new wife, etc. It gets wearing, I mean surely there are good things in her life? Or if it's so awful there are other options open to her. As for the mystery, it was okay but it wasn't the best I've seen. Since this is the first book in a series it seemed to be just setting up the characters and relationships with the mystery as a backdrop.
The better - I liked both Ben and Cas, and there were certainly some scenes and lines that made me smile. I think this has the potential to turn into something, so I'll read the next book and see how it goes from there. 2.5 Stars.
The better - I liked both Ben and Cas, and there were certainly some scenes and lines that made me smile. I think this has the potential to turn into something, so I'll read the next book and see how it goes from there. 2.5 Stars.
April 23, 2018
Candyce "Dyce" Dare is a young divorcee with a toddler and a "barely making it" business refinishing furniture. She is unconventional and hard headed. Her financial struggles lead her to dumpster dive for furniture to fix and resell. In the beginning of the book she finds a nice little table and a corpse. One of the detectives who responds to Dyce's 911 call is extremely attractive and seems interested in her. The budding romance, that she's fairly oblivious to, is handled lightly as is the murder mystery and the break-ins at her apartment. Dyce has some issues and lets her ex take advantage of her. She does some stupid things throughout the book, like put herself squarely in harms way just because she thinks she's tough. She does the opposite of what her best friend Ben advises and what Detective Wolfe makes her swear to. This is irritating and made me dislike her. She also purposely put her child in a dangerous position just to prove a point. Stupidity and irrational behavior do not a good series make. Not sure if the interesting info on furniture refinishing can redeem a dummy heroine.
March 27, 2018
I liked the premise of this book and many of the characters: handsome detective, gay best friend, over the top transvestite, even the neurotic cat. I had trouble with the main character....she just seemed...well like a twit. Her habit of random babbling was annoying, she steals evidence from crime scenes, takes forever to add up potential clues, and even when the the likely solution is staring her in the face still makes up excuses to keep her stupid table. Plus she's childish: well 2 guys you care about me tell me that 2 corpses when I should stay away from investigating this murder but I'm not because you told me not to....so there! To top it all off she dashes off to the most likely suspects place of business toting along her toddler to question an accomplice to murder... how stupid is that?
I might try reading the next one to see if she improves and to find out what happens to office hotstuff but I'm not holding out a lot of hope.
I might try reading the next one to see if she improves and to find out what happens to office hotstuff but I'm not holding out a lot of hope.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 7, 2012
OK little toss-away mystery. Too much repetition of detail-we hear too often about her best friend being gay, her parents being odd, her dietary habits. I think it was the mark of an author trying to establish a character in the first book of a series. Let's hope so. Won't be hanging onto the book, but I'll pass it along to friends as a "beach read" type of book.
February 27, 2017
Great new series
I'm more of an SF and non-fiction reader than a mystery buff, but the mysteries I love: by Dick Franceis Ngaio Marsh, or M.C. Beacon; all have the same combination of distinctive - and appealing, - authorial voice, a really interesting setting, and a lead character I want to root for. I'm adding "Elise Hyatt" to that list of must- have authors.
I'm more of an SF and non-fiction reader than a mystery buff, but the mysteries I love: by Dick Franceis Ngaio Marsh, or M.C. Beacon; all have the same combination of distinctive - and appealing, - authorial voice, a really interesting setting, and a lead character I want to root for. I'm adding "Elise Hyatt" to that list of must- have authors.
September 5, 2010
A fun book made less fun by the irritating lack of common sense and wrongheadedness of the main character, Dyce Dare. She was 30 going on 13. I may read one of the author's later books to see if Dyce shows any growth. Two and a half stars.
May 31, 2017
Clever and often humorous, except that the protagonist went far out of her way to make me hate her and vow never to read anything including her as a character again.
July 7, 2019
In Elise Hyatt's Dipped, Stripped, and Dead, the first installment of the Daring Finds Cozy mystery series, this debut will interest you on how to refinish your furniture and be intrigued in a new series. For Candyce "Dyce" Dare, she never expected to be divorced and a single mother of a one-year-old son before she would turn thirty. In the sleepy town of Goldport, Colorado, it all started for her when she went dumpster diving to find a treasured table and later a dead body. That's when she met Detective Castor "Cas" Wolfe who was assigned to the case. There's an instant chemistry between them at first glance. But while Dyce starts her own home refinishing business to make ends meets and pays the bills and the rent. As the only child of middle-aged parents, she lives next door to her best friend Benedict Mahr, who happens to have problems with his partner in their apartment. She happens to have problems of her own--her ex and his new wife who's giving her a hard time, and then someone's targeting her apartment and her own car. While she does some sleuthing on her own, she goes deep to find a connection between a missing body and a lye vat--and when she talks to an ally named Inobart Oakfriend, he later winds up dead in her apartment. Though the tensions are high between Cas and Dyce, they need to find out who killed two people in a lye vat and why. And before Dyce could go dancing with Castor, she would need to get down to the bottom of it to solve this sticky murder before it would too late for her.
December 30, 2022
Dipped, Stripped and Dead has an interesting underlying premise. The protagonist is a furniture refinisher and in order to find furniture to work on, she occasionally dumpster dives at the local university. When she does that, early in this book, she comes across a corpse. The man had been placed in lye, which is a chemical furniture refinishers sometimes use to strip the furniture. This coincidence made the protagonist look bad, so she determined to solve the mystery of this murder herself. Theis was an amusing and pleasurable beginning to s series I'd like to see more of.
March 4, 2017
A wonderfully light and fun read!
For a "craft" mystery this was an amazingly fun and light read. Entertaining with just enough "oomph" to the mystery aspect that the obvious solution isn't but the answer isn't far fetched. Make no mistake, if you're expecting a mystery like the Tempe Brennan novels you'll be bitterly disappointed. But if you want a fun story and a casually diverting read with interesting characters then I would give this one a chance.
For a "craft" mystery this was an amazingly fun and light read. Entertaining with just enough "oomph" to the mystery aspect that the obvious solution isn't but the answer isn't far fetched. Make no mistake, if you're expecting a mystery like the Tempe Brennan novels you'll be bitterly disappointed. But if you want a fun story and a casually diverting read with interesting characters then I would give this one a chance.
July 31, 2017
This is the first in a series and a great start to a new series. I really enjoyed reading this one and did not want to put it down. The main character, Dyce, was smart and funny. Her son made me laugh. I love her relationship with her bestie, Ben. I won't give away the story except that it starts with her dumpster diving. (I've been known to peek myself and always am out on garbage day to see what I can discover.) Looking forward to the next in the series.
February 26, 2023
Just finished this charming book tonight. It’s the first in a series featuring Dyce Dare, a clumsy young girl who though she wanted to be a ballerina, ended up refinishing furniture and dumpster diving to supply her business. Then she stumbled over a dead body…. This is the perfect light-hearted read, an entertaining yarn which takes you away from the craziness of today. Dyce is both independent entrepreneur and slightly ditzy dame, who doesn’t want to realize the gorgeous cop is in love with her, and also keeps mum about the antique coffee table she found next to the body. See, she’s got to raise her young son, and find a way to make more money from refinishing furniture to keep them in something other than pancakes.
November 2, 2023
Fun read, familiar setting, occasional crossovers
Fun read, familiar setting, occasional crossovers, all make for a good evening's story.
The only drawback for me was the central character's too-cutsie running commentary. Not a major fault, because it was very much an enjoyable book.
Fun read, familiar setting, occasional crossovers, all make for a good evening's story.
The only drawback for me was the central character's too-cutsie running commentary. Not a major fault, because it was very much an enjoyable book.
December 23, 2023
I gave this a three star in the end, the plot was okay. But it took me forever to read, just really could not get into it. I did not care for the main character, Dyce, at all. Pretty much a person who could care less about any one else as long as she got her way. If there are more in the series, I will not be reading them.
February 25, 2025
First, I get not wanting generic character names but Enoch, Candyce, All-ex, seriously. The "I'm so quirky it's cute!" Main character. Somehow she can't find ANY job besides dumpster diving and her kid is selectively mute? "I am extremely poor and refuse help" "I find that super attractive ". Seriously. Won't be picking up any other books by this author.
March 6, 2018
I was in the mood for some light reading, and this was a good choice: interesting characters, a little romance and a mystery that kept you guessing. I even gasped out loud! Nice cover-art, too. I'll be picking up book 2 the next time I'm need something light.
December 26, 2018
Fun, quirky craft mystery. The language didn't exactly meet my standards (there was a running joke with the 2 year old swearing that was funny the first time but got old) and the resolution to the mystery was no surprise but I enjoyed the characters quite a bit
August 14, 2021
I can't in any way day it was a bad book, it was well written, with interesting characters and I enjoyed it... So why the lower rating? Purely because it was very much...I don't know how to say. It was very 'samey' as other do it yourself detective books.
August 6, 2017
Great book,on to book 2 in a few minutes.
January 23, 2019
Fun murder mystery with the interesting angle of furniture refinishing thrown in. Passion and romance are dangerous when carried out near vats of lye.
February 24, 2019
More like a 2.75 - writing style wasn’t that great but the storyline had potential
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