A Hard Day for a Hangoverby Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781250233141
Series: Sunshine Vicram #3
Publication Date: December 6, 2022
Pages: 343
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Some people greet the day with open arms. Sheriff Sunshine Vicram would rather give it a hearty shove and get back into bed, because there’s just too much going on right now. There’s a series of women going missing, and Sunny feels powerless to stop it. There’s her persistent and awesomely-rebellious daughter Auri, who’s out to singlehandedly become Del Sol’s youngest and fiercest investigator. And then there’s drama with Levi Ravinder—the guy she’s loved and lusted after for years. The guy who might just be her one and only. The guy who comes from a family of disingenuous vipers looking to oust him—and Sunshine—for good.
Like we said, the new day can take a hike.
This third and last instalment wraps up every last little story arc and has a few stand alone mini plots as well. Everyone is back – even the racoon – and the pace is as fast as the first two books. Jones can be frank and pragmatic with her characters, but she can also be sentimental as all get-out and sometimes she walks that fine line between sentimental and saccharine, although rarely crosses it. Auri remains just that little bit too good to be true, as do most of the children in Jones’ books but she’s not unbearable at all.
I like what Jones did with the main stand-alone story arc, involving a series of missing women. It went in a slightly unorthodox direction, and I liked it, if ‘like’ is the right word to use. About mid-way through it becomes a bit transparent, but waiting to find out how it would unfold and how she’d handle it, made up for that.
I am so sorry to see this series end. I love these characters and the town of Del Sol, and I’m going to miss them.