Heather Webber, "Truly, Madly: A Novel"

I enjoyed reading "Truly, Madly" a great deal. This surprised me because I started one of the author's other books, from her Nina Quinn series, and couldn't finish it. I didn't like the characters and the story wasn't fun at all. But I immediately liked Lucy Valentine and her family. The premise of the Valentine family business, matchmakers who use a secret, hereditary, psychic ability to find matches, is interesting and not too "out there" to be unbelievable (for me anyway). Lucy can't matchmake because of an accident with lightning as a teen, instead she can locate lost objects. The book follows her discovery of ways to use this talent and the feelings she struggles with over it. Of course, there are the obligatory sexy men, but the author makes them part of the story and it works well, the romance novel flavor doesn't take over the mystery. "Truly, Madly" is filled with humor, mostly centered around the foibles of Lucy's parents and her grandmother, which gives the story enough lightness to be enjoyable for me (I think that's what was missing in the Nina Quinn books). I would recommend for any reader who enjoys lighter mysteries not slotted into the "cozy" category.