Book Review: Twenty-Nine & a Half Reasons

Twenty-Nine and a Half Reasons (Rose Gardner Mysteries #2) by Denise Grover Swank

When Rose reports for Fenton County jury duty she figures she’s lucky to get out of a morning working at the DMV. Instead, despite a disastrous encounter with the new assistant district attorney, Mason Deveraux, she’s picked as a juror on a murder case. As the trial progresses, she realizes an ominous vision she had in the men’s restroom proves the defendant is innocent. And there’s not a cotton picking thing she can do about it.

Or is there?

As if things weren’t bad enough, Rose’s older sister Violet is going through a mid-life crisis. Violet insists that Rose stop seeing her sexy new boyfriend, Arkansas state detective Joe Simmons and date other men. Rose is done letting people boss her around, but she can’t commit to Joe either. Still, Rose isn’t about to let the best thing in her life slip away.
 

Kindle Edition

Published June 26th 2012 by Bramagioia Enterprises 

 First off I would like to thank Denise for giving us all new readers a chance to have one of her book Ebook version. Initially I told her that I would love to read twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes but when I saw she sent me book 2 I thought, did I write that right? But it's turns out that the first book was FREE on Amazon (Score!!!) So I sort of got two birds with one stone. 

Review

After ending a drag stint with her undercover cop boyfriend, life is looking up for Rose . . . She enjoying her newly define life with Joe and identify herself as a person. But her visions still wound her into trouble. 

Being serve for Jury Duty, Day One . . .  bad start off and a vision that shows the man on trial is innocent, but how can she prove it?

Determine to save the innocent man, she goes digging for trouble but will that trouble get her kill? 

Rose will fights against the clock but she will also fights for the innocent against all odds

Can she do it? Can she solve this case or will she fail that might cost her, her life.

I give this 4.5 Cat Tails Up, Twenty-Nine and a Half Reasons brings Reasons of doubts and difficult choices that Rose has to make in order to make herself happy but also maintain her new found freedom. 

MEOW . . . MEOW . . . MEOW 

Wow from Rose being a people pleaser to being her own woman in her own skin, she has her new life in hands having dates and a little hot and sexy romance with her boyfriend Joe, plus her dog Muffy life couldn't be more perfect. However her relationship with Joe is somewhat long distance because he works in Little Rock but visit/stay with Rose during the weekend. That was about the only thing that was imperfect. 

After the case with her Mom's murder and with Joe's undercover stint being to an end, Rose thought she would have a break from law enforcement. But instead the next thing is that she is served to Jury Duty.

[I actually was in that position as well last summer, but thankfully there was no trials plus it had fell just short around the time I was actually going on a trip as well. Hopefully I'll never be served Jury Duty ever again, I just can't stand the thought of being in a court room} 

Rose's first day started with being late, overhearing someone in the men's room about getting away with Murder and running into uptight ADA Mason Deveraux. Then to top it off, she get a vision about the man on trial . . . he is innocent! But of course thankfully she pass out like she does when a vision strikes that no one really heard her. 

But her vision still haunts her and can't really stand to be responsible for a man's sentence, so she tells her boyfriend but even he can't help her! In fact he seems more against it than trying to help Rose figure out whose the real culprit. So she admittedly went to the ADA who seems to hate her gut or really just everyone all together but she believes that maybe he could help. But during the mist of defending the man's innocent, the Judge put her in contempt of court and there Mason was willing to listen to her story.

What I love about Rose is her determination toward this case, but I really can't believe she would step into a world of unfamiliar surroundings trying to find answers but thankfully Mason, yes Mason came to her rescue when a friend of her couldn't meet her but Mason made the mistake of calling Rose by her real name when she had used an alias and that put her on target.  

Rose also deals with her relationship with her sister which been strained since their mom murder and the drug stint that Rose got in the middle of when helping with Joe. Violet grows more annoyed of the fact Rose has her newly perfect life full of adventures but she also wanted Rose to date someone else . . . . anyone beside Joe. But then Rose learns about her sister's growing strain marriage and while she had weight about moving to Little Rock, she couldn't leave her sister behind. 

The trial heats up and Rose is finally with the madman that was going to get away with Murder, perhaps even her own as well. But thankfully that Mason picked up on something was wrong when Rose didn't show up for her meeting and knew danger was around. It ended up at Rose's front yard and Mason and Joe are there to the rescue.

Rose face many difficult choices and now I would like to discuss her Twenty-Nine Reasons list for Little Rock (pg 321-322)

1. Waking up with Joe every morning
2. Having someone to kill bugs
3. He cooks really well
4. He's sweet to Muffy
5. He's a good cuddler
6. He's a wonderful man
7. He helps me wash dishes
8. He believe in me more than I do sometimes
9. He puts gas in my car
10. He mows the lawn for me
11. He helps me paint and says he likes it
12. He likes to try new things with me
13. He's content to just be with me
14. He likes to play with Ashley and Mikey
15. He holds my hand when we go for walks
16. He doesn't snore
17. He rubs my feet
18. He gives me backrubs
19. He's thoughtful
20. He's a very handsome man
21. He thinks I'm beautiful
22. He helps me figure out problems
23. He thinks I'm intelligent
24. He's not embarrassed by my vision
25. He loves me
26. He misses me when we're not together
27. He wants to have a family one day
28. He makes me happy
29. I'm miserable with out him

Thus ending with I'm not ready . . . 

Now this time her list isn't about what she wants to do, it was about her relationship with Joe. Having a long distance relationship can be tough and Rose was feeling the weight of that, not just because her sister is deems to say that her relationship with Joe isn't genuine or true . . . Rose believes what she has with Joe is as real as it gets. 

I think moving in with someone would be a hard decision to make for either side, Joe wasn't technically living with Rose, it was more like a temporary guest that is there every weekend. I know that horrible for me to say but it's the truth.

But as the story and the relationship evolves it was clear that Joe was still in some way controlling Rose, for the sake of her safety but also he can't imagine life without her. But in the end they mutually decided to take a break from each other because of insane they drive each other but it was also a break up. She couldn't commit to moving to Little Rock and he couldn't commit to Rose because of his family name and maybe some of his own personal conflicts.

I'm still hoping for Joe and Rose again but I'll have to wait and see what happens once I get book 3 and book 4 plus Book 5?  I got a lot more books to go for Rose Gardner