Under Contract by Jennifer L. Jordan

Under Contract by Jennifer L. Jordan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I'm not exactly sure what happened between book one and two. The characters are similar to but not the same as the ones in the first book (as in Lauren and Sasha). And there's a weird dynamic going on here where Lauren is both kind of dislikeable in this book and very judgmental (wait, no, that goes with the dislikeable part, I mean to say, for the other half of that 'both', emotional).

And what was up with that romance tease? With the way it was injected in the book? The plot line seemed to be: 1) Lauren: I'm not dating I'm not dating I'm not dating; 2) Lauren: Rollie might be trying to set me up with this woman . . . .; 3) Lauren: we had drinks but I've no clue what happened that night; 4) [Insert here Lauren doing nothing to figure out if anything happened 'that night'; now insert here Lauren continuing with her life as if it doesn't matter if something did or didn't occur; 5) Lauren begins thinking that she might potentially date again eventually.

Hmm. But then Lauren was weirdly wacky personality wise. What with the deal up above about the romance sub-plot, there's also some weird personality split going on with her investigating abilities (as in, she's going down the list of potential suspects and kind of wonders if one of the people who hired her might be involved somehow; later, someone is forced to be her partner and brings up the idea that . . . the person who hired them might be involved and Lauren acts like that's both immensely stupid, and inconceivable).

Right. Enough of that.

Mystery: Unlike the prior book, Sasha just bounces around like a loon in this one doing odd shit but without a case of her own (as opposed to prior book when she bounced around like a loon but did have a case to investigate). With that out of the way: Lauren had two mysteries she was investigating (a third could have been 'did I or did I not sleep with that woman' though that's more of a question for the reader to play with . . . I guess). A builder has hired Lauren to investigate fire. As in, someone has been burning down the houses his company is in the process of building. The second case involves LoDo (I forget what that stands for, though it's a section of the city of Denver) - business has fallen considerably ever since one fight had broken out, and the police have responded with massive force and presence (seriously? One fight occurs and suddenly a section of Denver is now considered a war-zone, cops swarm the area, and business falls? One fight?) and Lauren has been hired to investigate the people who were involved in that mini-fight.

There was an interesting book here but it kind of fell apart somewhere along the way, neither mystery was that satisfying, and the main character has become an overly-emotional and quite unlikeable person with an odd habit of being a push-over (one example: Sasha redecorates Lauren's office without permission. Lauren hates it. makes a scene. Doesn't do anything to 'fix' the office, and stresses over whether or not the fish that Sasha put in her office die. And she doesn't even like fish. Sasha receives no comment/punishment/words about her lunatic actions. Lauren just accepts it).

Rating: 3.15

November 3 2017



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