Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes (Rose Gardner #1)

Summary:

For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.

Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen-- do more with a man. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty secrets of his own.

Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all. (Summary and book cover courtesy of goodreads.com)

Review:

As a kindle freebie, I was happy with this book.  Rose has a fantastic voice, you pretty quickly find yourself wanting to root for her.  Some of her mannerisms I found annoying (crappy doodles), but otherwise she was a good combination of naïve, spunky and heartwarming.  She definitely has more of a tendency to do things that get her into trouble, but had a great sense of humor about it.

Generally, I enjoyed the mystery.  There was a twist that I was surprised by (it’s a good one!), but the rest was almost too predictable and Rose too stubborn to see all the signs or react to them.  In fact, she seems too busy trying to get lucky more than anything else and towards the end I got exasperated.   Overall a great read, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue with the series.

Rating: 4 stars!

Who should read it? Folks looking for a fun, quick mystery with a non-traditional heroine.

Want to read the whole series?

• Twenty Nine and a Half Reasons (Rose Gardner #2)

• Thirty and a Half Excuses (Rose Gardner #3)

• Thirty-One and a Half Regrets (Rose Gardner #4)

• Thirty-Two and a Half Complications (Rose Gardner #5)

• Thirty-Three and a Half Shenanigans (Rose Gardner #6)