Book Review: Bad Habits by Sarah Evans

 Bad Habits

by

Sarah Evans

 

Publisher: Clan Destine Press

 

Publication date: 1st September 2021

 

Genre: Crime / Humour

 

Series: D.I. Eve Rock #2

 

Pages: 264

 

RRP: $29.95AUD

 

Format read: paperback

 

Source: courtesy of the publisher

 

My review of Bad Habits

 

Grisly crime, romance and comedy all in one. And it works!

 

With D.I. Eve Rock Sarah Evans has created a likeable and complex character. She is sassy and full of spirit, very feminine but also likes the occasional cigar with her glass of wine.

Eve is currently on leave recovering from injuries sustained when her house and car were blown up and with no place to stay she is lodging at her mother Sister Immaculata's boarding school.

Eve can't stay away from the office for long, it's a good excuse to avoid Christmas lunch with her dysfunctional family, and she is soon back into the thick of it. New cases are mounting up; body parts found in a freezer, a major jewellery heist and an upmarket art gallery theft.

As the team start investigating the body count mounts and her mother, an ex sex-worker turned nun, has been acting very strangely. 

 

Bad Habits is a story rich in humour. Sarah Evans' writing is witty and entertaining. There is a lot going on and Eve is always in the midst of it. Eve Rock attracts trouble, it follows her around. This is the cause of lots of friendly ribbing between workmates, mostly at Eve's expense and she takes it all in her stride.

It's not all laughs, Bad Habits is a grisly tale of murder and butchery however the constant humour lightens an otherwise gruesome tale.

 

The multiple mysteries kept me turning the pages and the sweet romance between Eve and workmate D.I. Quinn Fox had me eager to see where it would go. Quinn is another likeable character, he seemed resigned to Eve's flightiness.

 

Bad Habits is the second book featuring D.I. Eve Rock and there is some backstory included making it read well as a standalone. It did leave me keen to read book 1, Operation Paradise.

 

A gruesomely good story for those that need lots of action in their books!

 

My rating 5 / 5  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

 

About the author

 

Sarah Evans, an English ex-pat journalist and former home-schooling mum, is the author of a lifestyle / recipe book Seasons and Seasonings in a Teapot, romance and crime novels, novellas, short stories and poetry.

She gives author talks and teaches memoir, creative writing, poetry and song-writing. She lives on a 20-acre hobby farm in rural Western Australia with her family and a menagerie of fur and feather and has added granny duties to her repertoire.