This book is a riot. I don't know how it found its way into my lap but there were so many moments where I giggled out loud and hollered about references I understood. Anyone who has ever spent time playing Online Role Playing games, been to a gaming or comic book convention, or fancied themselves able to be as smart as a T.V. detective will enjoy this book.

This is the hilarious tale of Dahlia Moss. Dahlia has not had a good year. She's had a nasty breakup and for some reason cannot get hired to save her life. Then one night while her crazy roommate throws a signature wacky party Dahlia is offered a job to find a thief. From here, Dahlia stumbles into the most fun romp of a detective mystery.

Harry Dresden, Veronica Mars, and a hint of Sandra Bullock from Miss Congeniality!

Great idea and concept for a book. A thoroughly enjoyable read. Highly recommended. .

The first novel in Wirsetone's Dahlia Moss Mysteries.
This is quite a fun novel, too. The main character is a millennial geek, so there were many things I found relatable (even if I am on the older side of "millennial" - I think).
Well-written, engaging, often amusing, this is a fun start to a new series. Recommended.

Fun story of a woman who can't seem to get it together. She manages to solve her mystery and straighten up her life a bit in a realistic manner.

This was a DNF for me as it just did not gel with me unfortunately. I might give it a go in the future to see if my thoughts change,

This follows a young woman Dahlia Moss and she has been recruited to find a virtual shield of some sort. Whilst investigating the man that recruited her Is found dead. Dahlia makes it her mission to find the shield and her employers killer.
This wasn't for me. The humour felt forced I didn't like the gaming world. Didn't particularly like dahlia.

Dahlia Moss has been unemployed for over a year and her last relationship ended when her boyfriend dumped her for the woman he had been cheating with. At a party hosted by her roommate Charise, Jonah Long offers her $2,000 to help him recapture a spear that had been stolen from him in an online game. She readily agrees but is dragged into a deeper mystery when, the next day, Jonah is found murdered in his apartment by a replica of the online weapon. Did one of his game guildmates do it? Is it the same person who stole the digital spear? Can Dahlia figure it all out?

It was a fun story with regular clues and revelations that made for enjoyment and entertainment. The copy I had was an unedited version so I hope the writing was cleaned up for the final version. Some of the errors were distracting.

This book made feel old. I've read YA books that didn't age me a s much as this one. There were just a lot of references I did not get. To be fair, the author did do a pretty good job of explaining some of them. Despite this, I did find myself laughing out loud a few times and chuckling to myself frequently.

This review is in exchange for a free e-galley from netgalley.com.

Ok, so.. this book can be risky, but I loved it! It isn't going to be for everything, considering there is a lot of "geeky" topics and easter eggs in there like Doctor Who references. I really liked that it has a cross between two worlds: the real world and through a video game.

Definitely worth a read, if you're into topics like those. If not, you might not enjoy this! It's really a 'you love it, or hate it' kind of book.

Meet Dahlia Moss, the reigning queen of unfortunate decision-making in the St. Louis area. She is unemployed, broke, and on her last bowl of ramen. But that's all about to change. Before Dahlia can make her life any messier on her own she's offered a job. A job that she's woefully under-qualified for. A job that will lead her to a murder, an MMORPG, and possibly a fella (or two?).

This book is a cozy mystery with a geeky twist. Although not a gamer myself, I still devoured the book. Dahlia Morris is seemly an underdog yet also a character I believe girls could relate to. She's just your average American girl trying to sort her life out when an unexpected proposal turns everything upside down.

I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading future books about Dahlia Moss' next escapades.

*Thank you to Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review*

DNF.

It was one of those books that I wasn't loving or hating at the time that I was reading it -- there just wasn't any sort of connection to KEEP me reading. :/

At the same time I feel like there really should have been a ton to feel connected to/entertained by. It just ended up being a disappointment, and feeling like it was really TRYING SO HARD to make me like it.

As always with anything I DNF or don't like, you should make your own decisions about it since everyone is different.

A Gamer Nerd Cozy

This book rises or falls on the shoulders of our heroine, Dahlia Moss. The MMORPG Kingdom of Zoth, and the people who play it, set up a nice frame and allowed for a wide range of supporting and incidental characters. The murder mystery was fine, although not really the heart of the book, even if it is billed as a mystery.

Really, it's all on Dahlia. She's a manic pixie dream girl, who's a bit of a klutz and is a touch both oblivious and self-involved. She doesn't so much act as behave. I generally liked her, although I didn't "like" like her. She was, though, engaging and interesting enough to carry this cozy. She had some funny lines and there were some very good throwaway lines and bits of observational humor.

Sometimes the spunky girl bit is overdone and a little too manic and forced. This was more mellow, which I appreciated. Dahlia also had a sort of take-it-leave-it attitude toward the reader, (the book is written as a journal that is consciously directed to the reader), and so she put herself out there without trying too hard to ingratiate herself with the reader. I appreciated that approach and was pleased to see that the author had enough confidence in Dahlia as a character to let her sink or swim on her own.

At bottom, then, this book struck me as amusing, cozy, and entertaining. Sometimes that's just right. (Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

DNF 45%
Humor and Mystery? I was so ready for this book but.... I didn't like the characters and everything was happening so fast without any kind of depth.

I'm quite a geek myself, computer wise, but definitely not in the online gaming world and this affected my enjoyment of this book as that's the environment it is set in. I liked the characters, most of them anyway and disliked those I was supposed to (as written by the author). I liked the quirkiness of the book and the main character and her flatmate. But because of its setting, I could only read the book for short periods of time. Being set in the real world and the online gaming world, each character had dual identities, their real ones and their online ones and it became confusing trying to remember which real one was which online one. Also, Dahlia is obviously no detective so the way in which she clumsily and accidentally arrived at conclusions was a bit off putting for me. I prefer good old fashioned logic and reasoning. By the time I had got to 90% of the book I was ready to give up. It was only because I felt I'd come thus far I might as well finish, that I did and the conclusion wasn't that exciting either. I've given it 3 stars purely for the wit and humour and, if another Dahlia mystery comes along, I probably would read it as long as it was NOT set in the online gaming world. I'd like to see how she copes in a more normal environment where she herself is allowed to be the quirky star, rather than the setting. I wouldn't particularly recommend it to anyone, unless I knew they were avid online gamers and readers.

While I gave this one four stars, and enjoyed the humor (and the geekness), it wasn't much of a mystery and the plot was kind of all over the place.