Poppy Done to Death by Charlaine Harris

I picked this book up from the library at the same time as its predecessor, Last Scene Alive. There's a family dinner scene in LSA where we meet some of Roe's relatives for the first time, and it mentions her sister-in-law, Poppy. I immediately had an "Aha!" moment - this girl is toast for Thanksgiving.

Sure enough, Poppy is about to be inducted into the group, Uppity Women, in Lawrencetown, a signal honor. On the day of the ceremony, however, she is a no-show. When Roe and her other sister-in-law, Melinda go over to her house to berate her, they find her dead in her kitchen, stabbed to death.

We quickly find out that there are plenty of suspects for Poppy's popping, mostly jealous wives of all the men she's slept with. She and her husband, John David, seem to have an open marriage, and despite outward appearances, she never really settled down after marriage and childbirth from her wild teens. One of the men she has slept with is the chief of police, Arthur, which has the effect of making him rather ineffectual for this investigation, so (are you surprised?) Roe turns out to be the only person capable of solving this mystery.

And on the subject of repeating themes in my reading lately, I mentioned in my review of Kitty and the Silver Bullet about women who are clueless about the fact that they are pregnant. Here we go again. Aurora starts experiencing some symptoms like being tired a lot, gaining a bit of weight, having sore breasts...and has no idea that she's pregnant till Melinda brings it up. Huh? Maybe it's not so much the experiencing of the symptoms, as the way that authors mention the symptoms that makes me aware they're pregnant long before they "get it."

If you've been following Aurora's adventures at all, you'll probably love this one, too.

One great quote for you fellow booklovers:
"...I gathered, that the day he touched books voluntarily was a day that should be marked on the calendar. I supressed a sigh. It was hard to believe a brother of mine wasn't a reader. I had never been able to figure out what non-readers did. Maybe, during Phillip's stay, I'd find out."