A Good Day for Chardonnay

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Last year, on a whim, I put in a request for the first book in a new series on NetGalley, a comedic novel about a Sherriff in quirky Del Sol, New Mexico. I'm pretty sure of the new-to-me authors I tried last year, Darynda Jones was y favorite. The combination of clever comedy, tense crime drama, slapstick, romance, sweet mother-daughter ness, and a splash of sexiness*. With that list of ingredients, you either have yourself a very tasty dessert or a giant mess—A Bad Day for Sunshine was the former.

* I don't normally look sexy in a book, but if it's done right, I can appreciate it. This was a bit too much for me, but it was tolerable.

This brings us to...

WHAT'S A GOOD DAY FOR CHARDONNAY ABOUT?
A typical day—as far as you can consider any day “typical” in Del Sol–is underway when Sunshine is called to the scene of Levi Ravnder's bar—he was involved in breaking up what looked like a bar fight and things went very, very bad.

The investigation into what actually happened opens up a veritable Pandora's box. There's the fight (which leaves an old friend of Ravinder's near-death) but soon, Sunny finds herself looking into a couple of cold cases from her past, forced to consider she might have been wrong. Meanwhile, she's dodging the follow-up attempts of one of history's worst blind dates.

Oh, yeah, and Sunny's still digging into her abduction from her adolescence—and what she learns and remembers in this book makes the revelations we got last time out seem like nothing.

AURI
As great as I think Sunshine is as a character, ditto for almost all the other characters in this series. They all pale in comparison to Sunshine's daughter, Auri. Her spunk, intelligence, and humor just endear her to me—and the relationship (particularly the conversations between the two).

We know that she's done a Veronica Mars-kind of thing at her old school, and she played an active role in one of the investigations. This time out, speaking of cold cases, she's got it into her head that one of the more colorful citizens of Del Sol was a serial killer decades ago and sets out to prove it (dragging her best friend and boyfriend along with her).

That might sound a little wacky, and it was at the beginning, but in the end, it was one of the richest storylines in the novel. Auri does some foolish, foolish things—but she does so with great intentions and care for others. It's hard not to cheer for someone doing that—even if it lands her, her friends, and others in peril.

WOW, SHE REALLY DID THAT?
Beyond telling a pretty fun story, ABDfS set up a lot of interesting ongoing arcs and introduced a great cast of characters that I was expecting to enjoy reading for a few novels. And Darynda Jones pulled the rug out from under my expectations.

Not all of the characters from ABDfS survive this book and more than a couple of the ongoing arcs were resolved. This didn't seem like the kind of series where that kind of thing was going to happen.

Clearly, I was wrong—and, as per usual when an author surprises me, I liked the way Jones did all of those. While I was expecting two of the arcs to go on for another book or three, I was relieved and pleased they didn't. There are new characters and arcs to take their place–and I'm eager to see what happens to all of them.

MY MOTHER
Yeah, this is odd for me to talk about, but I have to throw this in. Last week on our road trip, my wife and I listened to the audiobook for ABDfS, and I was taken aback by how racey it was. I vaguely remembered it, but my memory was a little off.

But this book? It's, um, more detailed. Which isn't my thing, but I get what Jones is doing and am sure that most of her readers will appreciate it. All I could think of as I read those sections was, “My mom is going to read this.” She's going to read it because I bought her the first book. Not only is she going to read this book, but she's also going to know that I read those scenes. And then I wanted to burst into flames.

Which is just a long way to say, if you like reading that kind of thing—Jones does a pretty effective job,

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT A GOOD DAY FOR CHARDONNAY?
Short answer—I think I enjoyed ABDfS a smidgen more than this one, but that was probably the joy of discovery because I think this was a better novel. Either way, it doesn't really matter, because this was a blast.

Jones throws everything into the pot—crime, romance, teen romance, family drama, dumb comedy, clever wordplay, and more—and it works. It all works. I laughed, I felt the tension, I even got a little misty at one point—well, okay, I got very misty at one point.

Darynda Jones and Sunshine Vicram are a dynamite pair and I hope to be reading them for a long, long time.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.