Coached to Death (The Life Coach Mysteries #1) by Victoria Laurie

Coached to Death by Victoria Laurie

My Rating: ★★★

I received a copy from Kensington Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

After going through a terrible divorce, Catherine Cooper is ready to dive into her new business and settle into her freshly build home. Unfortunately, things are not going as smoothly as Cat hoped. Her life coaching business is off to a rough start and one of her new neighbors, Heather, despises her. Cat is determined to dig up some dirt on Heather and air her dirty laundry, but someone beats her to the punch. Literally. Heather is dead and someone beat her over the head with Cat’s punch bowl. Determined to knock her name off the prime suspects list, Cat finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery that is much larger than she could’ve imagined.

I have been a long-time fan of Victoria Laurie’s books, so I was very excited when I heard that she was dropping a spin-off series following Cat and Gilley. I’ve read the Psychic Eye mysteries as well as the Ghost Hunter mysteries, so I was very excited to see how these two characters were going to come together and create a whole new series. This time around, we primarily follow Cat as she finds herself in the middle of a supernatural free murder mystery.

I thought I’d love a book that primarily follows Cat but quickly discovered that is not the case. I found Cat to be too naive to be believable, especially given how much of a successful businesswoman she’s been in the past. I just found many of her choices and thoughts to be unbelievable and found myself raising an eyebrow very high in response. I found myself a bit embarrassed for her as well during some of her exchanges with her love interest. I know that she’s newly divorced, but it’s hard to believe that she’d say or think some of the things she did. She came off as a very sheltered and naive person who has never dated and never pegged Cat as any of these things.

That said, I did enjoy the story and all the characters that surround Cat. I’m particularly excited to see Gilley again and hope that he has a bigger role in future books. I would like to see more of Cat’s new life as a life coach have a bigger role in the future, but I can’t complain too much about how life coaching took shape in this book. The mystery itself was very strong and compelling so that was a plus.

I loved many of the new characters that are here to stay and I’m excited to see where this series will take us. I hope that Cat will be less naive in the next installment because that was my primary problem with her and the book in this series opener. It’ll also be fun to see Gilley take on a bigger role as well as seeing Cat’s new business become more integrated in the story. It’ll also be great to see the new characters develop as well as see what kind of mystery Cat and Gilley will find themselves investigating next.