Mischief 24/7 : All About Romance

Mischief 24/7

Grade : B-

I didn’t realize that Kasey Michael’s Mischief 24/7 was the third in her series featuring the Sunshine sisters. If I had, I wouldn’t have picked it for review, which would have been a shame, as I enjoyed this story of a second chance at love.

Jade Sunshine is a private detective who, until recently, worked for her father. Now, she and her sisters, along with their significant others, are trying to prove that their father was murdered instead of committing suicide. Jade and her sisters believe that the key to his death lies with some of his cold cases. This pursuit has brought her back in contact for the first time in over a year with her ex-husband, Court Beckett.

Court was interested in Jade from the minute he spotted her posing undercover as a hooker in one of his hotels. The two began a passionate affair. Her father tried to do everything he could to break them up, leading Jade and Court to elope to Las Vegas.

Within days of their marriage, things started to go sour. Court, a wealthy hotel owner, began jetting around the country to visit his various holdings, leaving Jade alone. The two were apart almost more than they were together during their brief marriage and they divorced less than a year after they married.

Jade’s father – a real piece of work – definitely helped break up the two. After Jade’s mother abandoned the family, he let Jade take over the role of the responsible person, raising her two sisters and losing any shot at her own dreams. There’s an interesting symmetry in that it was her father’s manipulative behavior that helped break up Jade and Court’s marriage, but his death that brings them together again.

The book has an interesting structure. While the action in the present takes place over 24 hours, the chapters switch back and forth between the present and Jade and Court’s initial meeting and brief marriage. This structure worked for me, as I thought it was a different way to learn what the characters were like in the past and what they are like now. It’s clear that they’ve both learned a lot from their time apart. However, if you like your romances to flow in a linear fashion from point A to point B, this might not work for you.

While Jade and Court grapple with several different mysteries, the majority of the book focuses solely on their interactions in both the past and the present. I enjoyed learning about Jade and Court, but felt at times, as if too many different subplots were thrown in. With such a tight time-frame, I could have done without a chapter devoted to meeting one of Court’s distant cousins and having her invite them to her home in Scotland to investigate a mystery. I won’t be surprised if this isn’t the plot of a future book, but it just wasn’t needed here.

It’s possible that someone who has read the previous two books might like this a bit more than I do, as both of Jade’s sisters make an appearance in this book. However, it did work for me as a stand-alone, and I found it to be an enjoyable story of lovers reunited.

Reviewed by LinnieGayl Kimmel

Grade : B-

Book type : Contemporary Romance

Sensuality : Warm

Review Date : March 28, 2009

Published On : 2009/04

LinnieGayl Kimmel

My first memory is sitting with my mother on a blanket in our backyard surrounded by books and she is reading one of them to me. My love of reading was encouraged by my parents and it continues to today. I’ve gone through a lot of different genres over the years, but I currently primarily read mysteries (historical mysteries are my favorites) and romances (focusing on contemporaries, categories, and steampunk). When I’m not reading or working, I love to travel, knit, and work on various community projects.

LinnieGayl Kimmel's Reviews

0 Comments

newest

oldest most voted

Recent Comments

LinnieGayl Kimmel

LinnieGayl Kimmel's Reviews