YVONNE’S SHORTIES #378 – The Last Party // Hate To Love The Inspector

Time for another round of Yvonne’s Shorties! This time around a thriller that sadly didn’t work for me, and a contemporary romance I kind of wish I had DNFed instead.

Title: The Last Party
(DC Morgan #1)
Author: Clare Mackintosh
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime
First published: August 4th 2022
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Finished reading: July 30th 2023
Pages: 432

“One missing man. One body in the lake. We hardly need Miss Marple, do we?”

REVIEW

It’s true that I’ve had mixed reactions to Clare Mackintosh’s writing so far, but I absolutely loved my time with Hostage and I was hoping for a repeat experience with The Last Party. I was intrigued by the premise with the party, the lake setting and a murder mystery… And I fully expected to have a great time reading this first book of a new series. Unfortunately I ended up struggling considerably instead. I still like the premise and the setting is without doubt very well described. This story had so much potential, but in the end it just all fell flat for me. What didn’t work then? First of all, The Last Party was both way too slow for me and also way overlong. This story could have been easily at least 100 pages shorter, and the plot would have been a lot tigher this way. As it is, there are way too many different characters/POVs and way too many descriptions along the way, and this made the story drag considerably. Add the fact that every single character is unlikeable and only becomes worse once you get to know them better, and I honestly couldn’t care less what happened to any of them. The whole mystery around who killed Rhys didn’t seem present at all; instead the focus was on just how many characters were hiding something. It was just overkill; so many characters cheating on each other, so many horrible secrets, so many ‘revelations’ stacked up that you just become immune to them all. This is without doubt my least favorite Clare Mackintosh book so far, and I will definitely not be continuing this series.

Title: Hate To Love The Inspector
(Finding Love At The Doggie Spa #1)
Author: Elsie Woods
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
First published: December 20th 2021
Publisher: Puppy Love Books
Finished reading: July 23rd 2023
Pages: 234

“Ambition is important. But it’s not everything. Having someone to share the everyday with… That’s priceless.”

REVIEW

I needed a palate cleanser after a disappointing read, and I decided to dive into my selection of kindle freebie romances for a quick and fun read. I liked the sound of Hate To Love The Inspector, both because of the dogs and the enemies-to-lovers trope… But unfortunately this story ended up being another dud for me. There is no doubt that I still like the premise, but there was just something about the execution that simply didn’t work for me. The first person POV is always tricky to do right, but this wasn’t even my main issue here. My dislike of Hate To Love The Inspector had a lot to do with the main characters and the often frustrating and unrealistic way they behaved. Their emotions and reactions were all over the place, going from hate to love to whatever other feeling in a blink of an eye. Their connection was partly insta-love, but the story was also an enemies-to-lovers trope; this led to a lot of contradicting and confusing interactions to be honest. And since when is a man using his position of power to intimidate attractive? Seriously, I hated Rob so much, and while he did get better later on, I just couldn’t look past how he behaved in the beginning. And Amelia blaming her own failure on Rob? Not cool. She was also highly annoying with her constant stressing out because of the exam, which was repeated over and over again in the plot. I did like that we at least got to see some dogs, and the fact that it’s a clean romance is a bonus. It’s also a quick read overall… Which is probably the main reason I made it to the end. I wouldn’t recommend Hate To Love The Inspector though, both because the writing is all over the place and the characters are unlikeable and don’t behave in a realistic way. The ending was also way too cliche and too much like the author wanted to wrap everything up with a nice big bow.