A HARD DAY FOR A HANGOVER (AVAILABLE 12/6/22).(*****).... EVERYBODY NEEDS A LITTLE SUNSHINE.....

           

              Couldn't wait to give you an advance review of one that's going right to top of my list of Most Favorite Books Of The Year...

               And much, much thanks to NetGalley and publisher St. Martins Press for the advance read in exchange for an honest review. 

               SQ says grab it on Dec.6th, the day it hits the stores and put it immediately on your Holiday Gift List.....for yourself and everybody else.

               First, I'm utterly crushed, saddened and miserable at the thought that this book's the completion of Drynda Jones's Sunshine Vicram series.   Only a trilogy?  Nooooooooo........

                 Please, please, please don't let this be true.  Because it's practically criminal how much fun these books are.......at one moment laugh out loud funny and then next making a reader (along with the characters) close to tearing up with a bursting heart. 

               Not an easy task, and the ''Sunshine' books pull it off page after page......to the point where once I come to the end, I'm already counting the days until the next book comes out. ,

               That explains my depression at the thought of no more visits to the little town of Del Sol New Mexico, where Sheriff Sunshine Vicram and literally everyone else in the town wields a devastating, 
wickedly deadpan sense of humor. 

                 This quirky, oddball populace includes  Levi, Ravinder the mysterious, taciturn love of Sun's life, Quincy, her mountain-sized BFF deputy and most importantly Auri, her impossibly adorable 15 year old daughter, fiercely beloved by the entire town....(with the one exception of Auri's high school arch-nemesis mean girl....)

                I should point out though, that "A Hard Day For a Hangover"  would not read easily as a stand-alone, since so much of the story comes from the previous two books.  And you most definitely do NOT want to deprive yourself of all the laughs, surprises, thrills and throat-catching moments in the first two, (A Bad Day For Sunshine, A Good Day For Chardonnay)

                  "A Hard Day"   finds Sunshine once again coping with a myriad of mysteries, danger, aggravations and numerous nutty encounters with Del Sol's one-of-a-kind townsfolk. There's a serial rapist-murderer tossing girls into canyons below the highway, and the ongoing peril  of coping with Levi's criminal uncles, one of whom is a murderous local kingpin.  (And speaking of her forever lover Levi, the sexual heat generated between them approaches near nuclear levels....)

                   And to add to her woes, daughter Auri, to Sun's everlasting outrage (but barely contained secret admiration) is as fearless and relentless a sleuth as her mom......which inevitably puts Auri in the crosshairs of her quarry and in harrowing need of rescuing.

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                   While there's no real stunning revelations as to where the where the evil lies, you don't read this series for the twists anyway.  The page turning comes from the laughs, the blink-back-the-tears stuff and the joys of hanging out with a whole bunch of unforgettable characters.  who never stop making making you smile.  

For me, that's an automatic 5 stars(*****).......and a heartfelt prayer that this series goes way, way beyond a trilogy. Here's hopin'........