Rating: 
Summary: The Skye's The Limits!
Review: There is no limit to the intrigue going on in Scumble River either! You already know the basics, so just let me say that you'll love Skye, May, Charlie and Simon. Oh, wait until you meet Bunny! 'Murder of a Barbie and Ken' is a welcome relief from hard-edged, dark mysteries and at least you can turn off the lights at night when you've finished reading. I love Denise Swanson's books and I know you will too. As a mystery writer myself, I know how hard it is to create loveable characters that you care about. Denise is a master.
Rating:
Summary: Mattel Murders
Review: This is a fun little lite cozy murder mystery, offering insights such as this father-daughter advice from 30-something School Psychologist Skye Denison's dad: You only need 2 tools, WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use the WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use the duct tape. Anything more complicated than that, call me.
And here's a fun flashback from Skye's Funeral Director Beau's Mom, Bunny: In the 60s, we took acid to make the world weirder. Now the world is weirder than we can handle, and we take Prozac to make it normal.
The plot and pace are perky. The style's breezy. If you live in small town, or used to, you KNOW some of these characters!
/TundraVision, out of a farmland village of about 900 souls in the Illinois heartland.
Rating: 
Summary: A well-crafted mystery with some humor
Review: This is my first reading of a Scumble River mystery, so I am stepping into the continuing saga of Skye Dennison, Illinois School Psychologist and Detective, several books into the series. Denise Swanson isn't likely to end up on my very favorites list, but I will read more in this series. She put together a pretty good mystery plot, developed some characters of interest that you care about, and threw in some humor. I'm not sure why she managed to annoy some of the other reviewers so much (who seem sensitive about her portrayal of small time life), because I didn't find her depiction of it so stereotypical. The plot involves a doctor and his wife who are found murdered by our heroine, Skye Dennison. The wife has a home-based distributorship of gourmet meals and the husband is losing patients (no pun intended) who are upset with the way he treats them (again, no pun intended). Everyone involved is a member (or adjunct member in the case of the womenfolk) of a group that's akin to the Moose lodge. The members rely on this for their social life, so it's a pretty inbred group. Skye is asked by a number of people (including, unbelievably, the police) to nose around and see if she can find out who killed this couple. But first she has to determine why, and if the intended victim was the husband, the wife, or both. The book moved right along, there were some laughs, it held my attention, and the mystery plotting was pretty good. All in all, a four star book -- and not five, because the literary quality just wasn't there, and it wasn't so compelling that I stayed up all night reading it or so funny that I laughed my way through the book.
Rating:
Summary: A well-crafted mystery with some humor
Review: This is my first reading of a Scumble River mystery, so I am stepping into the continuing saga of Skye Dennison, Illinois School Psychologist and Detective, several books into the series. Denise Swanson isn't likely to end up on my very favorites list, but I will read more in this series. She put together a pretty good mystery plot, developed some characters of interest that you care about, and threw in some humor. I'm not sure why she managed to annoy some of the other reviewers so much (who seem sensitive about her portrayal of small time life), because I didn't find her depiction of it so stereotypical. The plot involves a doctor and his wife who are found murdered by our heroine, Skye Dennison. The wife has a home-based distributorship of gourmet meals and the husband is losing patients (no pun intended) who are upset with the way he treats them (again, no pun intended). Everyone involved is a member (or adjunct member in the case of the womenfolk) of a group that's akin to the Moose lodge. The members rely on this for their social life, so it's a pretty inbred group. Skye is asked by a number of people (including, unbelievably, the police) to nose around and see if she can find out who killed this couple. But first she has to determine why, and if the intended victim was the husband, the wife, or both. The book moved right along, there were some laughs, it held my attention, and the mystery plotting was pretty good. All in all, a four star book -- and not five, because the literary quality just wasn't there, and it wasn't so compelling that I stayed up all night reading it or so funny that I laughed my way through the book.
Rating:
Summary: quick read
Review: This was a fun quick read. Just very light. This was my first book by this author and I enjoyed it.
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