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Thank you Netgalley and Kensington for the advance copy of The Tuesday Night Survivor’s Club by Lynn Cahoon.
I read a lot of cozy mysteries and am working on my own. After reading so many you see a lot of repeat ideas for the book location a restaurant, coffee shop, a bookstore. While The Tuesday Night Survivor’s Club is set in a bookstore, I had high hopes given that the book focused on the survivor’s club.
Survivors become sleuths to find a missing member of their book club in new-age Sedona, New Mexico . . .
Two things got Rarity Jones through her breast cancer treatments: friends and books. Now cancer-free, Rarity is devoting her life to helping others find their way through the maze to healing. She’s opened a bookstore focusing on the power of healing—Eastern medicine, Western medicine, the healing power of food, the power of meditation, and the importance of developing a support community. To that end, she’s also started the Tuesday Night Survivors book club. With its openness to new-age communities, Sedona, Arizona, is the perfect fit for Rarity’s bookstore and the tightly knit group.
But their therapeutic unity is disrupted when one of their members suddenly goes missing. Martha has always kept to herself, never opening up much of her personal life to the group. Now she’s nowhere to be found. With her car abandoned on a trail and her dog left with a friend, Rarity is sure something terrible has happened—but will she be able to uncover Martha’s secrets before it’s too late?
Rarity Jones was a good main character. I enjoyed learning about her job (running the bookstore) and her past. She was a great amateur sleuth asking questions and compiling them in her book club’s notebook.
There was a lot of supporting cast in this book. There were the members of the Survivor’s Club, Rarity’s best friend, the detective, and the hiking instructor. I felt like we never got a full grasp of the personalities of the club members, and I hope in the future that is expanded. These women have been through so much and I would like to know more. We did learn a little about one, but the others were just there are fillers. Rarity’s friendship with Sam annoyed me. Sam got upset with Rarity just because she talked to someone. I felt that was pretty childish. I also felt like if she was truly a good friend, she would have been more supportive.
I did not feel as transported to locations as I have in other cozy mysteries. I wanted to learn more about Sedona, but I felt like that was only done with descriptions listing the stores. I couldn’t picture the layout in my mind.
As for the mystery of the book, the mystery was slow. I did not feel pulled in and maybe that was because it took a while to find that there was a dead body or maybe it was just a slow mystery. I also figured out the killer relatively quickly (I did not know the reasons) and that made it feel even slower.
The Tuesday Night Survivor’s Club was a good concept, and I will likely read book two to see if some of my complaints from book one is addressed. Have you read this book? Get your copy for the June 14th publication.
The Spinny Bookworm Mama 