reviewed by Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban

I met Sandra Carey Cody at a book signing at the Doylestown Bookshop three years ago. Always the Southern lady she was too modest to promote her own book and instead told everybody approaching our tables how wonderful my young adult novel was. She even bought a copy of my novel for her neighbor’s grand-daughter. I reciprocated and brought home with me Put Out the Light, the first mystery in her series about Jennie Connors.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and when, three weeks ago, I learned that she was having a signing at the same bookstore to celebrate the release of her fourth novel in the series, I rushed to the store. And that is how I come to be reviewing today Left at Oz.

Left at Oz, I was happy to read was a prequel so that here we meet a younger Jennie as she solves her first mystery. This time the mystery is personal because her car is stolen and when she finds it, thanks to an anonymous phone call, there is a body inside: the body of a young girl who used to babysit for her. The mystery deepens as clue after clue the police uncovers seems to point at her. Desperate, Jennie jumps into the case and what she finds out will change her life forever.

What I like most about Jennie is that she is not a policewoman or a detective, but an ordinary person with a husband and two children, and although the mystery is at the center of the novel, the characters are real, and their relationships an important element in the story.

If you want to get a taste of the story, you can read the first page here: http://birthofanovel.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/a-brand-new-baby/

I dare you not to be hooked when you finished reading.

A great summer read.

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