Book Review | Buried in a Good Book by Tamara Barry

312 pages

Published: May 2022
by Poisened Pen Press

Read: February 2023

A thriller writer who knows way more than anyone should about death and dismemberment

Her young daughter who’s more intrigued by dead bodies than she probably should be

An isolated cabin in the woods that’s probably―definitely―hiding something

The tiny mountain town that seems less than troubled by a sudden abundance of murders

Bestselling thriller writer Tess Harrow is almost at the end of her rope when she arrives with her teenage daughter at her grandfather’s rustic cabin in the woods. She hopes this will be a time for them to heal and bond after Tess’s recent divorce, but they’ve barely made it through the door when an explosion shakes the cabin. Suddenly it’s raining fish guts and…is that a human arm?

Tess was hardly convincing Gertie that a summer without Wi-Fi and running water would be an adventure. Now she’s thrust into a murder investigation, neighbors are saying they’ve spotted Bigfoot in the woods near her cabin, and the local sheriff is the spitting image of her character Detective Gabriel Gonzales―something he’s less than thrilled about. With so much more than her daughter’s summer plans at stake, it’s up to Tess to solve this case before anyone else gets hurt.

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Main Characters

• Victor Boyd – Sheriff in town in Winthrop, Washington
• Tess Harrow – Our main character; thriller, detective series writer. Recently divorced, moves up to her grandfather’s cabin in the woods close to the Canadian border
• Gertie Harrow – Tess’s 14 year old daughter
• Quentin Harrow – Tess’s ex husband
• Detective Gabriel Gonzales – the fiction detective that Tess writes her series about
• Nicki – Book mobile driver
• Ivy – Police officer – she is an aspiring sci fi novelist (and turns out her book is actually pretty good!)
• Carl – Police officer; ends up dead after chasing someone into the woods
• The Peabody triplets – Mason owns the sustainable logging company and wants to be sheriff of the town – he is slimy; the other 2 are no goods
• Wilma – the murder victim; she worked as a logger for Mason

My Review

Tess heads to northern Washington to live in her Grandfather’s cabin. She brings along her 14-year-old daughter, Gertie, to try to build their relationship – Tess and Gertie’s father, Quentin, have been divorced for 6 months and Quentin has basically abandoned Gertie as well. The cabin they are staying at has no electricity or running water (how rustic!).. or wifi! Upon arriving at the cabin, a body is discovered in their pond. With Tess’s experience digging into murders for her book series (and her nosiness), she inserts herself into the investigation.

You guys! There is a book mobile in this book! Swoon! The nostalgia of going to the book mobile when I was in elementary school (even though we had plenty off brick and mortar libraries) was so great.

I stayed up until midnight trying to get this book finished, so it definitely hooked me! There are so many unbelievable things that happen in this book and I thought the plot wasn’t going to work with how out there parts of it were — but it worked for me!

I just got the third book in this series through NetGalley, so I started this book this week and will have to check out the second book now! It’s exciting to fall into an easy, fun series.

Likes

• The book mobile
• The fact that the main character is a thriller writer and we get some flashes of her detective character throughout the book – and the main character of her book happens to have a lot in common with the sheriff in town
• Tess gets called out for how bad some of her plots were when compared to how real police work happens
• The angstyness of Gertie

Dislikes

• There were quite a few red herrings and different parts where I thought everything was figured out.. that I almost got confused? But also, glad there were so many of these to keep it interesting until the very end.

Spoilers