Book Review: Give Murder a Hand by Beth Prentice

OK so it happened again, not quite as late this time, but still well past a reasonable bedtime on a work night. I’m going to blame it all on Beth Prentice though. If she hadn’t written such a great book, I’d have been able to put it down unfinished and go to sleep. I did actually put it down after finishing chapter 15, I turned off the light and everything, turned over, closed my eyes and then… I thought, oh Claire there’s only 5 chapters left, you may as well finish it so you know how it all turns out.

Give Murder a Hand is book 2 in The Westport Mysteries and once again Lizzie manages to attract crazy into her life. She’s still with gorgeous handyman Riley, though I became less of a fan of his as the book went on, he did however manage to redeem himself in my eyes and all was forgiven. She now has the attention of the gorgeous police officer, hmm I wonder how that’s going to go down.

I have to say, I have a bad habit of clenching my jaw when I’m stressed and I was doing just that for quite a chunk of this book. There is a character called Allison, she’s a psychiatrist that Lizzie goes to see, suffice to say that I hated her, I actually got on goodreads at one point to vent my dislike of her, I think I wrote something like “I hate Allison from the very depths of my soul”. That didn’t change! I felt like throwing the book across the room and had to put my kindle down (it’s not quite the same as being able to slam the book closed) several times so as I could take some deep breaths and continue.

Lizzie’s siblings are such fabulous characters, I love the time Lizzie spends with them, they are dramatic and supportive, just as you’d wish your own to be in real life (OK maybe not as much drama). Grandma Mabel is still as outrageous as ever and manages to get herself into some major trouble this time, her predilection for chasing men at her age frustrates Lizzie’s mum to no end and could be her downfall.

The mystery surrounding Lizzie’s house this time involves an old skeleton in the garden, yes Lizzie’s house is full of lovely surprises. I figured out who the bad guy was early on, and was screaming (in my head, as I was in public) at them all, why couldn’t they figure it out!

If you remember at the beginning of the year I put myself on a book buying ban, the original thought was 6 months, which I immediately changed to 3, well I’ve since relaxed it to 1 month, bad news is I can’t buy books for another week! But the good news is, I should get through the rest of the swing without needing to stay up all night reading, maybe not, the other good news is that once the month is over I can buy book 3 Deathly Desire, and see what happens next in Lizzie’s crazy life, I can’t wait. In the meantime I have two Westport novellas to read, one being Lizzie’s first Christmas with Riley, that should be fun lol and the other about a new character, Tilly.

About the book: How many secrets can one house hide?

Just when Lizzie thought the only problems she had in life were her crazy family and far too many nightmares, the house reveals yet another secret. This time it’s a skeleton in the back yard. But the unusual thing about this skeleton is that it has an extra hand. Why? Well that’s what Lizzie wants to find out. But nothing is that easy is it?

Plus her drop dead gorgeous boyfriend Riley’s had enough of her nightmares and wants her to get professional help. Only when that professional help comes in the form of a long legged blonde who just happens to be Riley’s ex-girlfriend, Lizzie feels reluctant to reveal her deepest, darkest fears. Especially when her deepest, darkest fear is losing Riley to a long legged blonde ex-girlfriend. But this blonde seems to have a particular interest in Lizzie’s life. Is it just Riley she’s after? Or is there another reason she always seems to be around whenever Lizzie’s life is in danger?

Near misses with death, a super hot policeman with a crush, Grandma’s new boyfriend, a garden full of senior citizens, and Bradley the owner of Westport Tours, all make Lizzie’s life interesting to say the least.

But can she find the truth before the For Sale sign gets hammered into the ground? Or will Lizzie take the secrets to an early grave?

Amazon AU

Goodreads