The synopsis for If I Should Die by Allison Brennan is truly concise, so I’m going to copy and paste it from Fantastic Fiction: “Aspiring FBI agent Lucy Kincaid and her P.I. boyfriend, Sean Rogan, are heading to the Adirondack Mountains for a pleasant romantic getaway when they detour to help troubled friends, owners of a new resort who are battling malicious vandals. After Lucy and Sean pursue an arsonist into an abandoned mine shaft, Lucy stumbles upon an even more heinous crime – and the perfectly preserved remains of its victim. The only thing more disturbing than the discovery of the corpse is its sudden disappearance. . . .”
I ate this book up in about 24 hours. Granted, there’s always something happening or something to do in the plot. Also, because we have half action and half procedural styles going on, a lot of the book is dialogue. And don’t you just love holding a mass-market paperback in your hand??
If I Should Die does something books #1 and #2 don’t do: it gives away the head villain early on. We’re not trying to figure out whodunit, but how Lucy, Sean, and, eventually, several departments of the U.S. government solve the “where” component. Where is the ringleader? And what does it have to do with one little, hometown resort? As much as I love Edgar Wright’s police movie Hot Fuzz (woooo, police!), they are suspicious af in Brennan’s 3rd Lucy Kincaid book. After Lucy takes them to where she saw the dead body, posed as if it were Snow White and not dumped like trash, only to find it gone, they label her a hysterical woman who was scared in the dark. Little do they know she worked at a morgue for a year. Joke’s on you, hillbilly police!
Sean and Lucy’s relationship continues to develop, and I never felt bogged down by romance stuff. If anything, they both understand themselves and each other so well that the plot requires patience. Lucy can’t say “I love you” because she learned to disassociate from her emotions after she was assaulted seven years ago (a story that takes place before the series even begins). Sean can be a hothead, but he has empathy, too, reigning in his desires and respecting Lucy’s autonomy. You often catch him telling her what to do for safety reasons, but Lucy accepts or discards his admonitions. I love that there is no “save the princess” narrative in Brennan’s novel — even though Sean chidingly calls Lucy “princess” as a pet name to emphasize the contrast between the stereotype of a princess and who Lucy is.
New to the story is Sean’s dislike of authority, which will be a problem when Lucy becomes a full FBI agent. Can the relationship work if Lucy upholds the law and Sean bends, or sometimes breaks, it? Currently, she’s partnered with a character introduced in the second book, an FBI agent, and Sean is fully aware that Lucy’s favorite brother would prefer someone like the FBI agent over Sean as Lucy’s boyfriend. Again, we avoid the tropes of macho jealous BS because Sean is too smart for that. He’s not just “too smart for his own good,” he literally went to Stanford and MIT.
I hope you’re enjoying these reviews, whether you plan to read the Lucy Kincaid series or not. They’re exactly the kind of book I need during my internship. I tried reading a fairly simple fat-positive novel recently, and I even struggled with that to a degree. Much thanks for your patience, readership, and friendship.
Grab the Lapels 
“Hot Fuzz” was an awesome movie, probably the best that duo ever did. And frankly, I remember wishing I was Kermit, too, when I was a kid.
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I’m sure that, like Simon Pegg, you would have made a great frog. 👍
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D’awwww, look at you, encouraging my readers.
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Hot Fuzz absolutely hits ALL the right buttons for me. It appeals to my humor, my desire to have quotable catch phrases, for justice, for having a best friend who is like a life mate, etc.
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I do love holding a mass market paperback. Why can’t there be more of them?
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My husband and I were just talking the other day about how much we miss mass market paperbacks 🙂
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I wonder if I love them because everything I read growing up was in mass market paperback format. Then again, even today I don’t like having an overly fancy book because they cost more, and if I put that book in my purse and some corners get damaged, I get so mad.
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Mass markets were affordable, and, as person with small hands, so much easier to hold. I could eat lunch with one hand and hold the book in my other hand. Unless, of course, it was a real chunkster. But even then I could mostly manage it.
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Yes, much of that is true, but my problem is that many of them seem to have tight bindings which can make them hard to hold open enough in one hand, and can make the spine quite fragile. If I’d eating over lunch, give me a nicely opening trade paperback which lies flat on a table in front of me. (I do take Melanie’s point thought about the smaller ones fitting in one’s purse more easily!
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They’re just the best, seriously. I do not want big books, I do not want fancy books, and I do not want hardcover books.
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There we go. It sounds like the series has really hit its stride! That issue of tension I commented on in regards to whether the main character becomes an FBI agent early on now has a place where the focus can shift even if she does become an agent. Things might get harder for her even if she meets her initial goals. Things like that keep a series from getting too predictable and stale. I hope the next one is just as good!
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Thank you, Nicky! Yes, I love that she has been accepted but she’s not even at Quantico for training yet. I keep picturing the opening scene to Silence of the Lambs during which Clarice is running an obstacle course just before she’s called in to talk to Hannibal. Anyway, when Lucy goes to Quantico, we know she will be separated from Sean for weeks, so I’m looking forward to how that situation will go.
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Although I don’t read them often, I totally understand the pleasure of holding a mass market paperback in one’s hands. With the pressure constantly increasing on book publishing, I was actually wondering if a hardcover book would exist in ten years? They are getting so expensive to purchase for consumers, I wonder if we will just move back to paperback entirely…
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The spooky book club in Buchanan actually does not choose hardcover books for our monthly meetings because I have said I will not buy hardcover. Look at that–I made one statement and the whole club followed suit. I feel slightly guilty for that, but again, I’m not buying hardcover. I also think the mass market paperback has appeal to me because it fits in my purse the best.
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PS When my reading group started, one of our rules was that the book had to be available in a paperback format, because the hardbacks where just that much more expensive.
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I support your no hardcover stance actually. I don’t know if I can follow it myself because I typically read newer books, but I’d love to see us do without them. They feel a bit unnecessary, which sort of makes them…elitist?
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I think it’s more about the look of the book on your shelf. Some people also feel they last longer on the shelf, which I get, though what really breaks down your books and destroys them are dust and humidity, not a lack of a strong cover.
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In Australia, a lot of books, particularly fiction, are going straight to Trade Paperback, and then if they are successful to Mass Market some time later. Only the very top writers or special books (like a classy little novella) seem to be published in hardback here.
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that’s a great trend, hopefully that continues here. I’ll say most independent publishers in Canada publish paperback only as well, it seems only the major houses come out with hardbacks anymore….
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So hardcovers are less common in Australia? Here, the hardcover comes out first and is expensive. Then, after a year, usually, the book is re-released in trade paperback. It’s uncommon for the average book to come out in mass-market paperback. That is reserved for those “popcorn” books that you might buy at a gas station or read once at breakneck speed.
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I might be wrong Melanie but from what I see/receive/buy I believe this is the case. Trade paperback is the most common route, with hardback being reserved for some high end authors. And mass paperback only for those going into multiple printings. I’m pretty sure this has been the case for sometime. YEP … just did some research. Here is a publishing e exec in 2019 “Australia’s main (and sometimes only) edition is a trade paperback.”
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Outlier here, but I don’t love a mass market paperback anymore! I’ve gotten spoiled by trade paperbacks and hardcovers. Back when I was in high school it was all mass market paperbacks and I didn’t know otherwise. Anyway, I enjoy reading about these books because I probably won’t read them but you give just enough information about them to make me feel like I’ve got the gist! We’ve got them at my library and they’re pretty popular.
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One thing that annoys me about hardcovers is they have that jacket, so when I read the book, the jacket has to come off so I don’t rip it. Why don’t they put a plastic cover on it like libraries do, or why don’t they make the hard cover the actual cover?
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I made my comment before seeing this comment on the format! I’m not a big fan of hardbacks, mainly because they are bigger and heavier. Trade pbs are heavier than mass market but are a happy medium I think. Mr Gums hates the jackets and sticky tapes the flaps down which drives librarian me batty! They don’t both me too much. I know how to hold a book carefully when I’m reading it – haha.
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Or when the library puts a sticker on the plastic wrap that goes right over the synopsis. Why do some librarians do that??
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They are not usually librarians! Book covering is done by library technicians or aides, or volunteers, though the librarians should guide the process shouldn’t they? They may not always have the resources and time to do the quality control?
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It’s interesting that people tend to think everyone who works in a library is a librarian. We know not everyone who works in a school is a teacher, for example, or everyone in a hospital is a doctor or nurse, but when it comes to libraries that seems to be the assumption.
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Ahh, my schema is based on my time working in a library. The person who puts the stickers, etc. on everything was always a librarian, and she also put all the info in the library record.
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Ah, interesting. I guess I so rarely read a hardcover that’s not from the library that it don’t think to get annoyed by that!
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That’s true, most of my hardcover reading comes from the library. The exception is if I find something at a garage sale or Goodwill.
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I am enjoying these reviews. I love that you enjoy the books so much, and can really explain why they are so appealing. They might even appeal to me, if I had the time!
I’ll just respond to one comment of yours – “And don’t you just love holding a mass-market paperback in your hand??” Nope, I don’t. I like trade paperbacks for the main reason that they usually flop open more easily and stay open, and they usually have decent margins I can make comments in! They are, however, more expensive.
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I think you are in the minority regarding mass-market paperbacks! I guess I’m not much of a marginalia person, but I can see why you would be, not only as a former librarian, but as someone who seems to engage emotionally in a deeper way with each book you read.
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Sounds like I am!
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