I was hesitant to read this book for several reasons… I saw all the great ratings and reviews and was immediately skeptical. I also read the author’s first published book many years ago and didn’t care for it much at all – again for several reasons. And lastly, I’m still not sure how I feel about published fan fic when it’s so very obviously fan fic. I regularly debate this last one with myself and friends. It certainly makes me much more critical of the published version, at the very least.

With all that right out there, I enjoyed this book a lot. I have a soft spot for well done Rizzles fics (Rizzoli and Isles) and I thought the author did a great job of capturing the spirit of those characters. I’m also pretty sure that if I had no idea who the characters in this book were based off of, I’d still have had a very enjoyable experience – maybe even moreso. I don’t think I would have really gotten why Nora was so out of touch with popular culture – unless I missed that in the book, which is possible I suppose.

I thought the protagonists had a good deal of depth – which doesn’t seem to happen as often as it should in published fan fic – and the secondary characters weren’t flat either. The dialogue was good and flowed well and the story arcs were interesting. I liked pretty much the whole damn thing. I wish it had been different enough from the show that I would have been able to not see Jane and Maura and everyone else in the characters but it was a good, fun read. I enjoyed the author’s voice which seemed so much different from her first book.

I’m glad I finally caved to peer pressure and read Blurred Lines and I honestly look forward to reading the next in the series.