Book Review: Leg Up by Annabelle Hunter

Leg Up is the first book in Annabelle Hunter’s Lark Davis Mystery series.

What a hoot! Seriously! This book is going to make you laugh so much that your tummy would hurt! Fudge buckets of biscuits!!!

After her divorce, Larklyn Davis has moved to Barrow Bay with her daughter. She owns a stable for her dressage business. Money is not surplus but just enough to survive. Lark wakes up one morning to see a leg on her porch. The rest of the man is missing. How does she know that the leg is that one a man? Hairy and a tattoo – mostly a military guy. She thanks heavens that her daughter wasn’t here to witness this scene – regular visits to the shrinks are going to be costly… She remembers that she has some dressage appointments in the morning and messages all her clients and cancels their appointments. She then calls 911.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“Severed leg.”

“Excuse me?”

“I found a severed leg.”

“Is it still bleeding? Do you hear noises coming from nearby that might indicate where the owner of the leg is?”

Finally, the cops come to the ‘scene of the severed leg’ and Lark has to spend the night at her friend’s place. The next evening, Lark is all dressed up and ready to meet her friend at the pub when she finds an arm on her porch. She’s accidentally stepped on it too, Ouch! Okay, maybe no ouch because it’s just an arm – no body hanging out of it. Lark calls 911 and asks them to come check the arm. She says she would leave her heels on the scene – since she stepped on the arm with it – and leave for the meet-up at the pub with her friend. Nah, nope, not happening. Lark has to stay there until the cops come by.

To add to this leg and arm mess is this handsome and hot Captain America. No, not the Marvel hero, this guy is called Detective Brecken Wilson but Lark is still drooling over his Captain America-ish looks. She even calls him Captain once and he corrects her saying that he’s Detective. Huh? Detective? Who?

This book has a lot of swear words. Yes! Shiitake Mushrooms! Fudge buckets! Fudge buckets of Biscuits! Dagnabit! Son of a Donkey! Son of a Donkey’s uncle! Holy segue, Batman! Goodness gracious great balls of fire! I have been saving the best for the last. 😀 Goodness gracious great balls of Captain America! 😀 😀

If you think Lark is quirky, think again. Quirkiness runs in their family – Lark’s nana, cousin and aunt included! Forget family, the whole town is quirky. A self-proclaimed blogging queen knows every bit of gossip. The news of severed leg on Lark’s porch is on her blog even before the cops arrive at the scene of the crime!

Oh, and the twists and turns and quirks and horses, this book is a complete laugh riot. Murder isn’t funny. Neither is finding a severed leg on the porch. But when the severed leg is found on a dreamy, quirky woman named Lark, nothing is impossible!

As the story ends, there is an action-like sequence. Well, Lark being Lark, one can expect the ‘action’ sequence to be quite hilarious. There’s nothing missing in the story. There’s murder, a tinge of romance, Captain America (huh? who?) coffee – or lack of it, humour and cartloads of entertainment! What more could one ask for?!!

I highly recommend this book. I absolutely loved it. The next book two books in this series will be released this year and I cannot wait to read them! Annabelle Hunter is a brilliant author. I loved her writing style and loved the quirkiness she brings in her stories even more. Leg Up is one of the best cozy stories that I have ever read.

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