After checking out the book, Death by design, by Laura Childs, I decided I’d rather own it. I wound up picking up a copy from Amazon. What I first loved about the book is that it is an anthology of three of her scrapbooking series books. But when I spent more time with the book, I also learned the book also carried with it scrapbooking tips and recipes after each individual book in the anthology.
A scrapbooker can’t ask for much more when they are reading for pleasure and also getting a little scrapbook advice and the recipes are so delicious sounding!
When I finally started Keepsake Crimes, I was curious as to how a fictional scrapbook story could possibly be any good. However, I quickly learned that it can and was.
The book introduces Carmela Bertrand who owns a scrapbooking shop called Memory Mine. This quaint little scrapbooking store is right there in the French Quarter in Louisiana. The mystery unfolds as someone well-known in town, dies at Mardi Gras. Oddly, Carmela’s estranged husband is questioned, and is thought to be a suspect. Carmela knows her estranged husband cannot possibly be a killer, so she begins doing her own footwork. Strangely, she finds the answer in one of her customers scrapbooks.
When I first began reading the book, I thought it was funny because the entire story started out in the scrapbook shop on a class night. In between the story line, there were scrapbooking innuendo’s, comments made and several mentions of the actual pages they were designing. I actually imagined the pages in my head which was fairly cool.
Throughout the entire story, there are loads of detailed scrapbooking references, that very nicely coordinate with the book. They don’t seem out of place at all, and they follow the story line perfectly.
When I finally finished Keepsake Crimes, I knew I had a new author I was going to enjoy reading the rest of.
And so I began Photo Finished.
Related Articles:
Making Scrapbooking Into a Mystery – a book review for scrapbookers
Death By Design – Keepsake Crimes – a book review for scrapbookers