Who doesn’t love a rom-com that’s compared to Nora Ephron?  Who doesn’t like Agatha Christie and her winding tales of mystery and murder?  I love both of those, though I’m a relative newcomer to Agatha Christie.

The first page or two of this book pulled me in quickly.  And then it went downhill from there.  I get that this is supposed to be one of a series, and will probably flesh out characters more in future books, but I was really missing a connection with them in this book.  They’re all one dimensional, and in a really annoying way.  And I’m absolutely confused about how forgetful and idiotic the main character, Lila, was.  She’s being accused of a pretty big crime, but she’s bouncing around the town, without an displayed care in the world, trying food in many different restaurants.

She goes from church with her family and talking with the priest, to a lunch, to a crime scene, to a coffee shop, helping out someone who I think is supposed to be her best friend, to randomly stopping by her new love interest’s office (when she’s supposed to running to her house to get baking supplies), back to the coffee shop, and only when her lawyer calls does she remember that she’s in a bunch of trouble for BEING AT A CRIME SCENE.

And that’s not even accounting for that time when she goes to a wake, leaves, has lunch with someone, swings past a house, finds another crime scene, then goes back to the funeral home to find… someone?  I’m beyond confused with the timing of this whole thing.

Throughout all of this activity, there’s very little feeling, very little emotion.  Unless you count annoyance at her family and friends.  And the irritation that she’s back in her home town.  I just don’t get Lila.

This book needs to figure out what it wants to be – a murder mystery, or a rom-com, or chick-lit.  Trying to shove all three into a book like this didn’t work.  At least in my opinion.