Review: Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes (A Rose Gardner Mystery)

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank

Format: eBook
Pages: 376/882 MB
Published: June 29, 2011
Publisher: Bramagioia Enterprises
Genre: Fiction, Chick Lit, Mystery

My Rating: 5/5

Summary (from author's website):

"It all started when I saw myself dead."

For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead.  She's had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone's toilet's overflowed, but she's never seen one of herself before.  When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain:  There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.

Rose realizes she's wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true.  She's well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose thr rules of drinking, but won't help with number fifteen - do more with a man.  Joe's new to town, but it doesn't take a vision for Rose to realize he's got plenty of secrets of his own.

Somebody things Rose has something they want and they'll do anything to get it.  Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn't her biggest worry after all.

Trailer:

Review:

We all have bucket lists and sometimes it takes an event, such as a vision, for us to really sit down and think about them.  To really add all of the things we haven't yet done but long to accomplish.

This is the third series of Denise Grover Swank's that I have started and I have to say, it is now competing to take the crown as my all-time favourite.  With each of Denise's book, I find that I am more and more amazed with her amazing ability to tell a story.  Not only does she create characters that are so real and so vivid, but she puts them in a world that is as normal as the one we all live in every single day.  It really allows the reader to become part of the story and feel as though it was written for them.

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes is a fun, light romantic story with so many twists and turns that it seem to walk a tight line with becoming a mystery-thriller.  For me, that is the perfect combination of story.   The character of Rose has to be one of my favourites in a long time.  Sure she is so innocent that you have to wonder if she could be to good to be true, but as you dig deeper into her life, her story becomes clear and you realize that it's just her life's circumstances that made her the way she is.  Beyond the innocence though, she is so sarcastic and so funny that I actually found myself smiling while reading.  Her neighbour, Joe, is also one of my favourite characters for entirely different reasons... SWOON!

Overall, a novel full of twists and turns, ups and downs and ins and outs.  Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes is one that fans of all genres will enjoy.  Denise Grover Swank has once again, hit the ball out of the park.