Welcome Back, Booklovers! I feel like Winter is the perfect time to read something cozy when you're stuck in the house and just want to wrap up in a blanket with a warm mug of something. So when I saw a new cozy mystery series releasing with a Black family owned bakery I jumped on the opportunity to read an arc. So thank you to Macmillan and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to read for an honest review.
In Against the Currant we're introduced to Lyndsay Murray and her family who are immigrants from Grenada. Lyndsay has dreamed of opening a bakery for years even though her baking isn't the best and it's a family affair with everyone contributing. After a rival owner ends up dead all eyes are on Lyndsay since she had a very public argument with him.
I wanted to love this book but aside from other issues I really wasn't invested in the mystery. Lynsday has a nice family and I did find them interesting. I enjoyed how close knit they were. The food was mouth watering and familiar. The hustle and bustle of the shop and the large cast made sense. I just didn't care about following Lyndsay herself.
Lyndsay read very young and sheltered to me. More 21/22 than the 27 years she was supposed to read. She seemed to really be stuck on the bullies during her grade school days and it didn't make sense to me. I understand she had to deal with them all the way through college but being quite a few years removed from that environment it didn't track that she still spoke about them like she just graduated.
As someone with family from the English speaking Caribbean who even has family and family friends who live in Little Caribbean, I side-eyed so much of this book. It felt like it was written from the perspective of someone who was on the outside looking in. Some things were done well and some things were done so wrong. Some of the mentions of popular musicians were completely off. Trust me when I say the only ones who consider Harry Belefonte the King of Calypso are white people. What soca did Buju Banton sing? Other times name dropping worked even when it was less thought of ones like Billy Ocean.
Listening to the audiobook did not help. The accents were so bad! I'm not sure what islands that narrator thought she was doing. It was giving Jafakrican. And the way the pronunciation of Bunji and Machel made me feel lightheaded they were so off. These are very popular artists she could've looked up to get the pronunciations correct.
Overall this one was a huge miss for me which was a shame.
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