Still Knife Painting
After inheriting her uncle’s Red River Gorge homestead in Eastern Kentucky, smack dab in the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest, Miranda comes up with a perfect business plan for summer tourists: pairing outdoor painting classes with sips of local moonshine, followed by a mouthwatering sampler of the best in southern cooking.
To Miranda’s delight, Paint & Shine is a total success—until someone kills the cook. As the town’s outsider, suspicion naturally falls on Miranda. Murdering the best biscuit baker of Red River Gorge is a high crime in these parts. Miranda will have to prove her innocence before she’s moved from farmhouse to jail cell faster than she can say “white lightning.”
Series: A Paint & Shine Mystery – Book #1
Author: Cheryl Hollon
Genre: Cozy Mystery/Business
Publisher: Kensington Books
Page Count: 268
Rating: 
The first book in the new art and moonshine based cozy series “A Paint & Shine Mystery,” Still Knife Painting from Kensington Books, written by Cheryl Hollen is out now.
Miranda is a hard character to like. She does not appear to have any empathy for anyone; she is angry at the residents because they object to her providing moonshine to her art students. She is resentful of her inheritance, and most of all, she appears to be more concerned with her income than the murder that took place in her kitchen. Other characters aren’t much better. Even the man who may become Miranda’s love interest has issues.
The setting for this new series is picturesque, yet the descriptions did not go far enough to get the reader invested in the area. Having tourists sign up to take an art class in the forest is a wonderful idea, add in a southern meal, and a moonshine tasting, and you have a recipe made for success. But the cook doesn’t follow the menu and ends up dead in Miranda’s kitchen. Suspects are few, but most are believable. The evidence is a bit flimsy. The killer wasn’t difficult to uncover and was the most enjoyable character in the book.
Unfortunately, I did not find Still Knife Painting to be very enjoyable. I thought the premise of art and moonshine would be interesting, and there were some interesting parts to the story, but overall I couldn’t get past the main character being just a bit too obnoxious. She is portrayed as an introvert, but the truth is more likely that she just doesn’t like people. All of this said I will give book two a try when it comes out.
Other art-related cozies readers may enjoy are G.P. Gardner’s thrilling “A Cleo Mack Mystery” or Mollie Cox Bryan’s delightful “A Cora Crafts Mystery”.
About the Author:
Cheryl Hollon writes full time after leaving an engineering career designing and building military flight simulators in amazing countries such as England, Wales, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, and India. Fulfilling a lifetime dream, she combines her love of writing with a passion for creating art.
Cheryl is Past President of the Florida Gulf Coast Sisters in Crime, a member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. A mystery conference addict, she regularly attends SleuthFest in Florida, Malice Domestic in DC, Killer Nashville in Tennessee, and Magna Cum Murder in Indianapolis, IN. You will also find her at Left Coast Crime and Bouchercon, wherever they are being held.
Cheryl and her husband live in downtown St. Petersburg, FL.
Contact Cheryl: http://cherylhollon.com/contact/
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