REVIEW:

While I’m much more of a Chianti kind of girl, every once in awhile a glass of crisp, cool chardonnay hits the spot on a hot summer night.

So it goes with my reading preferences too, and occasionally I need to take a break from dark and twisty thrillers with bright and sunny mysteries. Enter Darynda Jones’s humorous Sunshine Vicram series and this July’s release of book 2, A Good Day for Chardonnay.

First of all, if you haven’t already read its predecessor, A Bad Day for Sunshine, you’ve wandered into the wrong review and should redirect yourself accordingly. Start there where Sheriff Vicram, her daughter Auri, and the larger cast of Del Sol, New Mexico characters and their backstories are introduced.

Then pick back up with Chardonnay where you’ll find a very satisfying - if unnecessarily overstuffed - continuation of the plot. Big questions are answered, including “will they or won’t they” about a major relationship. Now let’s just say hypothetically that they will…

… and they will in the type of graphic open-door fashion where all the c-words I loathe come into play (so to speak, wink wink). Turns out this particular vintage of chardonnay is quite hot and spicy, so you’ll need a glass of water nearby. Or if you’re like me, earmuffs.

The audiobook is narrated by the always spectacular Lorelei King, who fans of this particular genre of mystery+romance+humor will recognize from similar books like those of Janet Evanovich. She has a way of nailing the sass and snark of these characters like no one else. I hope she sticks around to read book 3, because this one sure ends on a big cliffhanger.

My thanks to the author and Macmillan Audio for the gifted advance listening copy to review via NetGalley. A Good Day for Chardonnay is slated for US publication on July 27th.

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

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 easy-going day. You know, the kind that starts with coffee and a donut (or three) and ends with take-out 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 which 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.