5/19/2023 0 Comments A Plain Death by Amanda Flower![]() ![]() ![]() Amish cozies can work, but Flower needs to work on making characters credible and compelling. Flower (Maid of Murder), a librarian, diversifies the popular Amish niche. Flower offers imaginative touches: pets with character (a crabby cat named Gigabyte). B&H, 14.99 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-1433676970. The bad guys are cartoony (“he grinned at me, tobacco juice trailing down his lower lip”) the theology of the Amish implausible (“there is not one right way to be obedient to the Lord”). Unfortunately, the characters are cardboard. Thus begins the novel’s central relationship, soon complicated by Chloe’s work environment, a car accident that kills an Amish bishop, and Becky’s hunky brother Timothy, who has left the Amish but is still righteous enough to be a Mennonite. After the sudden death of their parents in the jungles of Central America, twelve-year-old science geek Andora Andi Boggs and her diva teenager of a sister. Driving to her new home in Appleseed Creek, Chloe meets a young Amish woman, Becky, who needs rescue from two local thugs harassing her as she walks down the road. A sad family history is packed in her baggage. The premise promises: Chloe Humphrey is a 24-year-old geek hired to direct technology services at a tiny college in Ohio’s Amish country. Flower (Maid of Murder), a librarian, diversifies the popular Amish niche with this unsuccessful cozy. ![]()
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