Pumpkintown Perils Volume 1 by Aubrey Law is listed as a cozy mystery; this book is actually four short stories under one cover. Law recaps the pertinent details in each story so they could be read as stand-alones even though the main characters interconnect each story. The setting details in the first story were fairly rich in structure, allowing this reader to visualize the surroundings, although all stories were fairly lacking in character description. The main female protagonist, Wanda, came across as narcissistic and snobbish instead of self-assured and confident - as this reader assumes she was to be presented, with her continual comments of being the most beautiful and desirable female in the area. Wanda seemed to be written as perfection personified, which left her difficult for this reader to empathize with or about. There were some minor grammar, spelling and punctuation errors, albeit not enough to toss a reader from the story or detract from the tale, itself. The dialogue is where this reader found the most problems. Dialogue was somewhat stagnant and didn't seem to contribute to the plot or the characters personality, it was simply there, like filler-fluff. This reader is a firm believer that dialogue must either advance the plot or be used to show character details and/or peculiarities, and found the dialogue within these stories unbelievable and just "there". The first story held a lot of promise and was interesting enough to keep this reader turning pages. The various mysteries were quite easily solved by this reader, within a paragraph or two of their details. However, by books end, this reader felt the book should have been labeled as a mystery for young YA readers. This reader will recommend the book to her own fourteen year old grand daughter - there is hardly any cursing and sex is ownly hinted at, perfectly acceptable for the younger readers. ** Review originally posted at Goodreads on January 8, 2017. **
