Fatality by Firelight

Cat Latimer Mystery Series, Book 2

By: Lynn Cahoon

Narrated by: C.S.E. Cooney

To kick off a winter writing retreat, Cat and her handyman boyfriend, Seth, escort the aspiring authors to a nearby ski resort, hoping that some fresh cold air will wake up their creative muses. But instead of hitting the slopes, they hit the bar - and before long, a tipsy romance novelist named Christina is keeping herself warm with a local ski bum who might have neglected to tell her about his upcoming wedding.

Next thing Cat knows, her uncle, the town sheriff, informs her that the young man's been found dead in a hot tub - and Christina shows up crying and covered in blood. Now, between a murder mystery, the theft of a rare Hemingway edition, and the arrival of a black-clad stranger in snowy Aspen Hills, Cat's afraid everything's going downhill....

©2017 Lynn Cahoon (P)2017 Tantor

Still enjoying this series

I'm still enjoying this series. I was hoping the first in the series wasn't "beginners luck." The characters are well rounded and are constantly growing. I hope the next in the series comes quickly as I'm already wondering what trouble Cat can get herself into.

Cat Latimer mystery

This next book in the series was well written and kept you interested in what would happen in the next chapter.

Every book is making it more interesting!

I love cozy mysteries and this one is shaping up nicely. Cat is the owner of a Writers Resort in a college town found in Colorado. The secrets surrounding this small college town are slowly rising to the surface after one murder in Cat's home (bk1) and now an almost kidnapping (bk2). And we are coming closer to the answers of the questions dealing with her x-husband's death.
An enjoyable listen, and I'm looking forward to book 3

Strong sequel to a good book!

Cat Latimer is holding the second week of her writers' retreat in Aspen Hills in the Victorian house Colorado she inherited from her ex-husband, Michael in Fatality by Firelight by Lynn Cahoon. While at the ski lodge, she spots Christina, one of her writers, with Tommy Neal, but the man neglects to tell her that he is engaged. Despite a warning from Cat against Tommy, Christina leaves the group to go with him, only to flee from him soon after when she learns that Tommy's only idea is sex, and Christina is dedicated to the belief of waiting until marriage. A little later someone finds Tommy in the hot tub of the hotel room he rented, stabbed in the stomach. As Christina was the last person to see Tommy alive, she faces suspicion as the murderer.

A day later, Cat goes walking in town and gets run over by a man exiting the coffee shop and gets saved by a handsome man who takes her into the coffee shop to treat her to coffee. When describing the incident to her Uncle Pete, police chief of Aspen Hills, Cat learns that Dante Cornelio is a major mob figure. Even more shocking to her is learning the fact that Covington College, where Cat went to school and taught a few years, is a place where mob members send their children. As Dante begins to pursue Cat, Seth, Cat's boyfriend, gets concerned that Cat might have a stalker, and the group of writers face even greater danger.

Fatality by Firelight has a compelling plot that gripped me from the start. With the murder's taking place at the beginning of the book, we get drawn in to the plot, and the addition of the mob details adds even more effectively to the plot. The series also has a running mystery of what Michael, Cat's ex-husband, had been up to before what Cat has recently learned was his unnatural death. We learn a lot more about his actions, but the book leaves us without a solution. Those familiar with my reviews will know that I have a big issue with books that contain cliffhangers, seeing them as manupulating readers into getting the next book. However, this book didn't make me feel manipulated. It leaves off at a point in the investigation into Michael's death where I was left curious but not unsatisfied.

The characters that appeared in the previous book continue with similar traits, but other than Christina, the guests do not have the same details as in the prior book. In that book, we really connected to each person in the book, but this book seems to rely on our knowledge of the main characters from the first book and doesn't do as much to depict the characters as vividly as before.

One thing I really liked about this book was the details about writing, research, and the publication process. Cat makes a point to force herself herself write every day, giving herself a word limit, a detail that published writers express as necessary. It reminds me of a meme I've seen that states, "I write when I'm inspired. And I make a point to be inspired at 9:00 every morning." Good writers rely largely on perspiration as well as inspiration. We also see the writers going to the college library to do research for their books, but Cat also expresses concern that one fiction writer has been doing too much research and not actual writing, which the character calls "the research twilight zone." Cat also talks about the importance of having a complete and polished book before trying to query an agent or a publisher.

C.S.E. Coomey performs the audiobook effectively. I don't know that the performance was especially memorable, but it was still enjoyable.

I really did enjoy Fatality by Firelight. The plot kept me attached to the book and did a lot to help me stay distracted from my migraine, which was really severe at the time. I give this book five stars!

I've found another favorite writer!

I love listening about Cat. You want her to find the answers to her questions.

fun mystery

I like the characters in this series. I think Lynn still needs to master how to keep the mystery a mystery, but I at least had the murderer wrong until much closer to the end, even if I knew who the stalker was and who the thief was early on. The narrator still needs work... I've not read aloud but to myself and could probably do a better job. She doesn't seem to get sarcasm and still sounds robotic. That said, she sounds better than she did in the first book of the series. I've got a couple other thoughts of what will happen, so I want to see how far off I am.

Writer’s Workshop

Kat is about to host beer second work shop in her Aspen home. Her relationship with Seth is heating up and she’s finding more clues in her ex-husband’s death. Great narration.

Fatality by firelight

I enjoyed the book immensely can't wait till the next one comes out I love the characters

Couldn’t Finish

I read the first book and thought I’d try the audible version for the second in the series. Didn’t get past chapter 3…the narrator emphasized every single SYL. LA. BLE. Precisely. In such a way that it was unbearable. A wasted credit.

Terrible narrator but ok story

I have listened to another series from this author and I cannot believe she wrote both of these series The narrator does such a terrible job that weakness in the writing that I was able to overlook in the other series made listening to this book a chore. The narrator has improved slightly since the first book in this particular series but not enough to make this enjoyable