Review: Widows and Orphans
My favourite fictional small-town journalist is back and embroiled in yet another murder mystery. Widows and Orphans is the second book in Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti’s Quill & Packet series and it was just as good as the first!
Here’s the book’s description:
In Port Ellis, there’s no off-season for murder.
Journalist Cat Conway is looking forward to an easy assignment covering a major wellness and self-actualization summit at the Pinerock Resort, featuring Bliss Bondar and Bree Guthrie, creators of the Welcome, Goddess empire and widows with attitude. Cat’s mother, Marian Conway, bestselling author and defiantly mediocre parent, is on the agenda—and so is murder.
When one of the influencers turns up dead, suspicion falls on the high-profile guests. Could the killer be a jealous business partner? Or the Instagram-famous poet? The empowerment guru whose wife hates him? Or Cat’s mother, who has a reputation to protect and a shocking secret to hide?
Cat’s pulled into investigating another celebrity death, but this time while facing the possible demise of her livelihood: The Quill & Packet is struggling financially, and may be headed toward its final edition. A convoy of protesters, angry at Cat’s reporting, has besieged the Quill’s newsroom. Can Cat rescue her mother and her newspaper, or will the killer stalking Port Ellis beat her to the deadline?
I loved this book…and yet, I was also so incredibly frustrated throughout. Don’t worry. I wasn't frustrated with the writing or the mystery. No, that was great. It was because of how infuriating the “wellness goddesses” were. Their thinking is so dangerous and we’re seeing it everywhere. At times it felt like this should be a dystopian novel, not a mystery, but the sad thing is, Hilton and Renzetti are drawing from real life. People really do believe vaccines are implanting chips inside our bodies and the government is trying to control us. People - kids - are dying because of this warped view. One of the women running the conference Cat was covering believed this too and everything out of her mouth made me so angry. Props to the authors for nailing it. Even though I was mad! Ha!
I mentioned in my review of Bury the Lead that I particularly enjoyed that Cat is a newspaper reporter, particularly because my partner is also a reporter. All the worries about the newspaper losing money, the prevalence of small town citizens not appreciating science or understanding unbiased reporting, and the somewhat less-than-thrilling reporting of city council meetings? It’s all so on point. Thank you to Hilton and Renzetti (especially the latter, a journalist herself), for showcasing journalism in your series.
Funnily enough, for a mystery, I wasn’t as invested in the literal murder investigation as I may have expected. I think it’s actually because Hilton and Renzetti did such a good job of layering many little storylines together that all worked towards the same climax - the murder was being solved at the same time other things were being exposed and resolved. It was incredibly satisfying.
Widows and Orphans was a fantastic second installment in one of my favourite mystery series. Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti have created such a smart, cozy, feminist series that I just love reading so very much. I cannot wait for the third book in their Quill & Packet series!
*An egalley was provided by the publisher, Spiderline (House of Anansi Press), via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own*
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