Darynda Jones
Lorelei King (narrator)
July 27, 2021
Macmillan Audio
Blurb: Running a small-town police force in the mountains of New Mexico should be a smooth, carefree kind of job. Sadly, full-time Sheriff – and even fuller-time coffee guzzler – Sunshine Vicram didn’t get that memo.
All Sunshine really wants is one easygoing day. You know, the kind that starts with coffee and a donut (or three) and ends with takeout pizza and a glass of chardonnay (or seven). Turns out, that’s about as easy as switching to decaf. (What kind of people do that? And who hurt them?)
Before she can say iced mocha latte, Sunny’s got a bar fight gone bad, a teenage daughter hunting a serial killer and, oh yes, the still unresolved mystery of her own abduction years prior. All evidence points to a local distiller, a dangerous bad boy named Levi Ravinder, but Sun knows he’s not the villain of her story. Still, perhaps beneath it all, he possesses the keys to her disappearance. At the very least, beneath it all, he possesses a serious set of abs. She’s seen it. Once. Accidentally.
Between policing a town her hunky chief deputy calls four cents short of a nickel, that pesky crush she has on Levi that seems to grow exponentially every day, and an irascible raccoon that just doesn’t know when to quit, Sunny’s life is about to rocket to a whole new level of crazy.
Yep, definitely a good day for chardonnay.
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Men stabbed at a local bar sends Sheriff Sunshine Vicram off to determine if the love of her life, Levi, has been injured in this second tale of the Sunshine Vicram series in Darynda Jones’ A Good Day for Chardonnay .
Let’s see. In A Good Day for Chardonnay, there’s a crazy raccoon with a penchant for escaping, a stabbing, a visit to Levi’s Uncle in jail, the discovery of who is behind the town’s secret organization, a blind date from hell. Meanwhile Sunshine’s daughter Auri is investigating a cold case and stumbles on something that may just lead to getting her killed. Oh, and then there’s a lead to a case that Sunshine worked on years before that’s tied to Levi. And there’s murder and mayhem. Did I leave anything out? Probably. There was A Lot going on.
The rapport among all of the main characters is good. Jones does an excellent job depicting the mother/daughter and best friend relationships. The dialogue exchanges are amusing and Jones manages to keep a rein on what can be a spewing forth of sometimes juvenile humor.
At just the point when I believed that A Good Day for Chardonnay should be winding down, Jones inserts a sex scene that reads like it’s from a porn site. The coarse language was grating to my delicate ears. And I have to admit to being a bit jarred by it and its placement. This scene certainly fit the bill of not only is less more but sometimes less is best.
For a bit afterward, I wondered why the book was continuing. What was left? Well, quite a bit. The novel regained its forward momentum and I continued along for the ride.
A Good Day for Chardonnay was probably a bit too long with too much going on but in the end it was mostly a satisfying read although I do wonder what’s left for book three and hope that Jones knows when to complete a series when there’s no more left to be said.
Lorelei King who has been the voice for other Darynda Jones series narrates A Good Day for Chardonnay in her usual capable manner with believable voices and appropriate drama. She is an excellent narrator.
I received an audio copy in exchange for an honest review.
rating:
4 out of 5 butterflies