Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - The Secret, Book & Scone Society

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Secret, Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams

9 reviews

katasaurus's review against another edition

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Not a fan of the superfluous romance.

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heather667's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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missrosymaplemoth's review against another edition

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3.0

I read this for APL’s April book club. The mystery pulled me in, but the writing style left a lot to be desired. It is unrealistic and pulled me out of the narrative when characters often used flowery language and spoke in long, poetic passages about things ranging from dramatic to even mundane. I am definitely not the target audience, I will admit; all of the characters are over 35. I still enjoyed this book but I am not incentivized to read the sequel.

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tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

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lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

First, a couple things I appreciate about this book:

Our Heroes are pretty bad at sleuthing, and they admit it. A nice choice in a subgenre full of amateur detectives who’ve never investigated so much as a checkbook register but can suddenly solve a murder
A group of women! Who are friends! And support each other! Rather than constantly tearing each other down!
Adams has attempted to give the Society members “tragic pasts” and really seems to have considered the ramifications of that for their interpersonal relationships

So those things are good! And then there’s… the rest of the book.

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helalost's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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strawberrydolly's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was my first Ellery Adams, my first cozy mystery (and first StoryGraph review) and I really enjoyed it.

A fair warning that this review contains slight (vague) spoilers.

I’ve heard some say it’s slow-paced and I can’t argue with that too much, but I’d still say it was more of a medium pace. The plot never slowed down or went off track. Lots of different events kept things interesting and even the side love story made some contributing points to the overall mystery. The reason behind the murder itself, confused me at first, but after the entire situation was explained a few times, I understood it.

I definitely loved all the characters. They were all diverse and different. I only had a problem with June and sometimes Nora who said Hester was young and naive several times throughout the book. It just seemed unnecessary and was a tad bit annoying to hear it. It wouldn’t have bothered me otherwise, but it definitely had that kind of feeling in the cases of boomers muttering, “kids these days,” under their breath. Other than that, The characters were great and lovable, despite their past. Estella was my favorite and I hope to see more of her in the next book, considering what happened to her in this one. I also loved Jed and am excited to see his and Nora’s relationship grow.
I did enjoy how the characters had depth to them and everyone, even minor characters had secrets and a hidden past.

Another notable mention is there were SO many literary refences that a few have to go over your head. Luckily, most of them don’t hold any significance to the major plotline and if it does, its throughly explained. It’s simply a more enjoyable read if you understand them. I enjoyed the twist this book gave, I truly wasn’t expecting it. The afterword definitely got me hooked into reading the next book (which I was planning on anyways). Overall, 4.5/5.

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kibbles15's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I liked this book, but I did not love it. I felt that the plot was slow and the characters themselves were not developed as much as I would have liked. I also feel that the sexual content, while mild, was more explicit than necessary. Note while this is considered a "Cozy murder mystery", several hard topics are discussed in the process as the four main characters get to know each other. These include domestic and child abuse, teen pregnancy, drunk driving...to name a few. That being said, I do think the theme of friendship through adversity was a nice touch to the story.

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alicelalicon's review against another edition

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lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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kyougokazumi's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

The story itself is mediocre but okay if you're in the mood for a light predictable mystery, but the writing is absolutely appalling

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