After finishing the Grisha trilogy I'm back on track with my reading prompts.

A book with a title the contains "salty" "sweet" "bitter" or "spicy"

For a book I got for free, this was pleasantly enjoyable. There are maybe a few too many characters, but I assume that's because this is the beginning of a series. It wasn't hard to keep track of them though. I enjoyed that the mystery wasn't impossible to figure out, but it also wasn't obvious either. The characters have flaws and aren't perfect which is nice to see. Any romantic sparks are background - not the main point of story, which I personally prefer.

I wouldn't qualified this as a mystery per se, more suspense. It's more about the things that happen in a small town than anyone doing any sort of investigation which is a bit disconcerting to me. It felt more like a novel to introduce the town and the series than anything so that disappointed. But that aside, I liked the town and I liked Zak and Tiff.

Zak is a hometown guy underemployed as a police dispatcher for a sheriff who cares more about small town politics than doing police work and the only one gung-ho for policing is new hire Nadine. Tiff has moved back to Montana after her life collapsed and she comes back to the family Christmas tree farm with her aunt and mom, the latter of whom never recovered from the loss of her son and husband many years ago.

Only a young woman, RIley, has been murdered and she was working at the family farm. We have other story lines like her friend from high school, his wife and their new adopted baby or the lawyer, Justin, also freshly married to a woman with a young daughter to a mutual friends of theirs.

Now more time is spent on all that family life nonsense than anything else but if does eventually tie into the mystery. I liked the characters. I just wish there had been more investigating and less just falling into the answer at the end.

I... couldn’t even finish this book. I generally expect that the quality of writing for a mystery/thriller is not going to be as high as a traditional novel, which is fine because generally the mystery carries the book and makes up for any lack in quality. This book, though, had poor quality writing and a terribly told mystery that started off the book but quickly fell to the background.

Small town Montana - quaint and quiet, until a young woman is found dead on the steps of the medical clinic. This was an easy read, with likable characters - some local, some new to the area - and some twists and turns. Enjoyed it enough to read the second in this four-part series.

Thank you to LibraryThing and Tule Publishing for providing me with an e-copy of Bitter Roots by CJ Carmichael in exchange for an honest review. This mystery begins with the brutal murder of a newcomer to the small town of Lost Trail, Montana. Her name was Riley Concurran. She had been living out of her car and had a job at the local Christmas tree farm owned by the Masterson family. Tiff Masterson has recently returned home to get her life in order and help her mother run the tree farm. Because the deceased was not known by many in Lost Trail, the sheriff's department is not sure whether to investigate Riley's past or the short time she was in town. Zak, the police dispatcher, is an old friend of Tiff's and the two start investigating the murder on their own. The novel moves at a quick pace: there are several possibilities as to who killed Riley. This whodunit keeps you guessing till the very end. Good story, satisfying resolution of the crime, interesting interpersonal relationships. A very enjoyable read.

Montana thriller

This was a good read. The characters were unique and interesting,. The story was fast paced and entertaining. It kept you guessing right up until the end.

Was this great literature? No. Did I enjoy the back out of it? Yes. Like the small town, the character development (or maybe just the characters themselves). Already bought book #2 in the series

Not bad. I enjoyed the mystery and the small town characters and their stories. It was a great confirmation as to why I could never survive living in a small town like this