Review: Murder in an Irish Village

Murder in an Irish Village by Carlene O'Connor
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I gave this one a try against my better judgement, and I shouldn't have. It just wasn't good. My first issue was that this felt like the author was trying WAY too hard to be "Irish." Everything felt like a stereotype that a tourist would expect to encounter in a "quaint Irish village." It was off-putting and felt cartoonish and fake. Perhaps as a result, the characters felt very two-dimensional, especially our (what I am assuming was supposed to be plucky, but just came across as unthinking, immature, a bit selfish, inconsiderate, and not very smart...) heroine and her trusty handsome guarda (whom she should have just let do his job and INVESTIGATE the murder, instead of sticking her nose in, going around interrogating every single resident of their village, and trying to do everything herself). I began to not like her; I couldn't relate to her, I didn't find her adorable (as I'm sure the reader is meant to), and I couldn't figure out if she was a teenager making dumb decisions, a young woman forced to care for her five siblings at too young an age, or what... The pacing felt off, as well. Important things were glossed over, unimportant things were described in intricate detail, and I found I just really didn't care by 3/4 through the book. Too many things were "told" instead of shown, and I very quickly became uninterested. I should have known better, because I're read a couple of other books by this author from a different series and didn't like those books, either. I won't be reading anything else by this author.

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