ARC Book Review: Finding Sky

Author: Susan O'Brien
Title: Finding Sky
Publisher: Henery Press
Publish Date: Oct 7, 2014
Buy: Amazon

Review Copy Provided By: Net Galley
Book Blurb: 

She’s a parent. She’s (almost) a P.I. No one gets on your case like mom.

Suburban widow and P.I. in training Nicki Valentine can barely keep track of her two kids, never mind anyone else. But when her best friend’s adoption plan is jeopardized by the young birth mother’s disappearance, Nicki is persuaded to help. Nearly everyone else believes the teenager ran away, but Nicki trusts her BFF’s judgment, and the feeling is mutual.

The case leads where few moms go (teen parties, gang shootings) and places they can’t avoid (preschool parties, OB-GYNs’ offices). Nicki has everything to lose and much to gain — including the attention of her unnervingly hot P.I. instructor. Thankfully, Nicki is armed with her pesky conscience, occasional babysitters, a fully stocked minivan, and nature’s best defense system: women’s intuition.

Review: It took me awhile to decide how I felt about Nicki Valentine. She's the kind of overprotective crazy mom, that usually drives me nuts, but as I continued through Finding Sky, I really started to like her. She's intensely loyal to her friends, Kenna and Andy. They are the reason, she's taking on the hunt for the missing teenager, whose baby, Kenna and Andy were going to adopt.

The hunt for the missing Beth, leads Nicki into some pretty nasty situations, involving drugs and gangs, and she gets put on the hit list of one of those gangs. Not something fun, when you have kids to raise.

The story starts off a little slowly, as you get to know the characters, but once Nicki starts her investigation things really get moving. This definitely wasn't the typical cozy, since there were no dead bodies. That made things more interesting. Then there's the question of will Dean be a love interest for Nicki or will he just be someone that helps her along. That's going to be fun to find out in the upcoming books. There's definitely a little bit of chemistry there, but will they act on it?

I really liked how passionate Nicki was about finding Beth and how good of a PI she's eventually going to be. She doesn't come across as an amateur sleuth at all.

I was pretty surprised at the way everything worked out in the end.

This was a great start to a new mystery series!

Rating: 4 flowers