Miss Frost Cracks A Caper (Jayne Frost, #4) by Kristen Painter

Miss Frost Cracks A Caper by Kristen Painter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This specific series book starts immediately . . . adjacent to the previous series book. I mean, literally. Hmm. Does literally work here? What does the word ‘adjacent’ mean again? Mmphs.

The previous book ended with ‘someone from the past’ turning up right when the book was ending. This book picks up that same scene – reprints it, and adds a few . . . hundred more pages.

The ex-best friend from college (well, later learned they grew up together, but they didn’t become friends until college, or at least until learned going to same college), is back after about 11 years and wants forgiveness for the crappy things she did. Which directly impacts both Cooper and Jayne. Two parts of the love triangle I’ve never actually mentioned exists in this series (Jayne is openly dating two men at the same time – Greyson the vampire, and Cooper the Summer Elf (who always seems to immediately be described (okay, several times, not always) as a kind of surfer dude looking guy – as opposed to Jayne, who is a Winter Elf (one has heat and heat related magic; other has cold and cold related magic)).

Here I jump to – there can be and have been mystery, or at least ‘peril’ threads in the Nocturne Falls series, but that one is definitely a Paranormal series (unless tons of graphic sex are needed to be considered to be in the paranormal series – these are heterosexual stories (sometimes almost aggressively heterosexual – at least in the sense that every bloody person ever bumped into mentions being attracted to, having been married to, or otherwise romantically linked to people of the opposite sex; and by ‘aggressively’, I mean, there are several times that seem to include an ‘of course’ – of course that specific woman would be interested in that specific man – because they do not share the same gender (there’s more to this but I’ve rapidly lost my train of thought and hadn’t even meant to include any of this anyway)) so I’m quite happy to lack graphic details. While the other (good grief all these asides have just ruined, I say ruined the natural flow of my paragraph, which is common to me) series, this one I mean – the Miss Frost one, is more mystery with traces of romance. And since it’s kind of ‘opposite’ – and because it follows the same character while the other series changes ‘lead couples’ each book, I call the Nocturne Falls one Paranormal, and the Miss Frost one Urban Fantasy. You know ‘Cozy Mysteries’? Well these are more ‘Cozy Urban Fantasies’.

Wow I’m really just rambling around like a moron lately in reviews.

1) An ex-friend arrives, asks for forgiveness; Jayne agrees to be ‘civil’;
2) 11 months (I think it said 11) months pass
3) The head vampire holds a ball – that ex-friend DJ’s the party; Jayne’s mother and aunt (otherwise known as Mrs. Kringle (Santa Claus wife) and the Winter Queen) attend. Neither of Jayne’s boyfriends attends.
4) Before and during the party, various thefts occur.
5) The thefts are investigated.
6) Jayne drools over yet another man to add to her, I believe it’s called ‘reverse harem’.

I mentioned the stuff about genre’s, types of fantasy (Paranormal/urban), and mystery above because, while there are mysteries and the like, they are really simple mysteries. I’d probably have to reread the series to make this comment, but you can almost determine the ‘villain’ by who Jayne doesn’t suspect. But, meh. I’m not here for the mysteries. But instead for the interesting story and characters. (to be fair to Jayne, the book description’s inclusion of ‘Jayne Frost … now private investigator’ is weird – except for the very first book in which she goes undercover at the store in Nocturne Falls, Jayne doesn’t really get ‘hired’ by anyone to solve anything; occasionally ‘forced’ to right the wrongs others say are her fault; or strongly told not to investigate (like in this book here), but at no time does she hang up a shingle with ‘P.I.’ or the like (but the description includes ‘sort of’! . . . right, oops, never mind).

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Good solid story. Passed the time well.

Rating: 3.75

February 14 2018




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