Thoughts: Undeniably Yours

Undeniably Yours

by Heather Webber
Book 5 (final) of Lucy Valentine

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  4.0 Stars

NO GOOD DEED

While still recuperating from injuries sustained in her previous case, the last thing psychic investigator Lucy Valentine wants is to dive into another job.  But when Detective Lieutenant Aiden Holliday comes calling for help in finding a missing woman, saying no is not an option.

TV journalist Kira Fitzpatrick has vanished without a trace.  There’s little for Lucy to go on except picking up Kira’s current investigation where she left off.  The fearless reporter had been close to cracking one of the year’s biggest cases: the disappearance of a two-year-old boy.

GOES UNPUNISHED

Now Lucy must use her abilities to find both of them.  As she follows a twisted trail of lies and deceit, she uncovers a shocking twist to Kira’s exposé that someone is desperate to keep secret.  It’s a race against the clock as Lucy struggles to discover who’s telling the truth…and who’s willing to kill to keep her from solving the case.

While I didn't really care for the fourth book, Perfectly Matched, I think that this fifth and final book in the Lucy Valentine series, Undeniably Yours, turned out to be a nice and well-rounded ending to the series.  And overall, this is a great series for anyone interested in fluffy cozy mysteries with a side dish of romance.

Undeniably Yours seemed to get a little bit chaotic with it's overlapping mystery lines, but it was overall a well-outlined book.  And while the ultimate conclusion wasn't quite as predictable as the previous few books, it didn't come as much of a surprise to me, even if I still feel like everything seemed a little... forced.

This last book, beginning immediately after that strange cliff-hanger off of the previous book, was actually quite fast-paced, making great use of Lucy's psychic skills (both new and old), as well as seemed quite thorough in its' investigative progress.

Of course, there were a lot of things about Undeniably Yours that I had quibbles about, mainly with the investigative process itself and who was actually doing all the investigation of our missing persons.  Because, to be honest, while I'm glad that Lucy gets to spend a lot of her time front and center as the person doing all the work... I found it a little hard to figure out why Lucy was doing all the work in the first place.  I mean, where are all the other detectives in this town and why aren't they all over this case?  You would think that after an explosion and the almost death of a police detective, there'd be more people fighting to work on this missing persons case.

Other little quibbles I had weren't really as bothersome as that first:

• Aiden's avoidance at telling Em about what's been going on with him started getting annoying, because we all just know that that's not the way to go, especially since the two just got engaged.
• Lucy's mother's sudden plans to renovate her little cottage without first consulting her also came off a bit more frustrating than humorously endearing--there's nothing worse than meddling parents, and that just seemed a bit extreme.
• All the dead ends that Lucy kept coming upon felt a bit forced, actually, like we were trying really, really hard to just road block her entire investigation, just to have everything work out miraculously all at the same time.
• The dreaded "Couple Curtain Call," because, while I love myself some romance, "Couple Curtain Call" endings are just a little tacky, no matter how authors try to handle them.
• Again, the ending of this book felt a little rushed and awkward.
• Also, with all the violent incidents that Lucy has been subjected to, I'm actually quite surprised she is even able to get up and move around, no less trek herself all over town investigating Aiden's case like she's actually a cop.
• Which brings me back to:  Why is Lucy the only person investigating this obviously criminal case?

But enough of the quibbles.  Truly, this book was extremely entertaining, and then include into it an adorable eighteen month old (How do you even know a baby is eighteen months old just by looking, because Lucy mentions twice that Ava looks to be about eighteen months, and you know, I probably would have just gone with the very vague "about a year old or two, maybe;" although to be fair, I'm the worst judge of age and will also look at a coworker and guesstimate her age to be late twenties or mid- to late thirties... or something like that), and lots of animals, and we've got an easy to read, easy to like cozy mystery with lots of heart.

I may have had a lot of quibbles, but really, I enjoyed myself and would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in cozy mysteries and romance and psychics and animals.

Though if you're looking for logic, you may have to overlook a lot of things in the last two books, and simply just enjoy.