A Fool and His Honey

I will admit it. The only reason why I read this book is because I have been watching the Aurora Teagarden mystery movies on the Hallmark channel. 

Candance Cameron Bure plays the protagonist .. Aurora Teagarden who is a part-time librarian and is a member in a true crime/mystery club. They review mostly old murder/mystery cases, such a Lizzie Borden, and examine the evidence in the case. Her best friend is a reporter and her ex-boyfriend is a police officer and both are also in this club .. which feeds into their imagination but it also allows them to think through the evidence presented.

I did watch A Bundle of Trouble before reading the book. The story lines and characters are roughly similar but that is where the similarity ends. 

The story begins with an acquaintance that Aurora knows was hired to bring them wood for the winter season. Aurora was home alone when the guy started to act erratically and began to remove his clothes. She proceeded to phone the Police station to get someone over who could assist him and figure out why he was acting oddly. This story line had ABSOLUTLY NOTHING to do with the main plot of the book. I am not even sure why it was even written in. 

The main plot is that Aurora's husband's niece showed up at her front door with a baby no one knew she had. Aurora and Martin go to dinner with friend's and when they return they find a dead body on their outside staircase, his niece has disappeared and she left her newborn baby under the bed. The investigation leads back to his hometown to try to give the baby to any relative and try to figure out the missing piece of the niece's life.

I overlooked the weirdness of the niece's friend sleeping behind the couch. I mean really .. it is absurd to think that there was a guy so tired that he slept BEHIND THE COUCH during the murder of his friend and disappearance of the niece. I mean really who sleeps behind a couch. I have yet found someone who would do that. 

Then there was the description of Martin Bartell - it led me to believe that he looked like John Queensland - which I had a hard time imagining since in the shows John is dating Aurora's mother. And in the book Aurora was a bit more selfish or self-absorbed than in the show. I just did not care for the amount of self issues she was going through when the story line affected Martin and his family life more. The whole time all she wanted to do find someone to leave the baby with .. she did not once try to step up and say hey Martin I am so sorry for your niece and  I can imagine how scarred you are -- of course the baby can stay and we will care for her. But no .. not even a little. Instead it was why me .. why do I have to step up .. why don't we have kids .. why does his family not want to bond with me. Then you had the vapid friends they had dinner with the night that the niece disappeared.  

I do have to say that if I read the book before watching the show .. I would never watch the show. Which would be a shame. The shows are a bit cheesy but they are not that bad.