Late Edition

July 4, 2011
The Godmothers are back and Michaels picks up the perfunctory tale where she last left it. Toots and her friends have taken up séances and discover, between a pair of "bloodcurdling screams," that Ida's husband, Thomas, didn't die of food poisoning as thought, but that he was actually murdered. Worse still, his killer was his own daughter, an illegitimate child that Ida didn't know existed. And now it's clear that this daughter also wants Ida dead so that she can inherit her father's millions. Meanwhile, Toots is bankrolling a haunted bakery in Charleston, S.C., and encouraging the burgeoning romance between daughter Abby and former stepson Chris. Michaels's newest lacks the drama, tension, and plausibility of her last Godmothers effort, Exclusive. Throughout this series, characters buy their way out of difficulties, never develop beyond two dimensions, and dance easily around danger, stripping everything from the reading experience but a basic curiosity about what minor scrapes characters will get intoâand easily out ofânext.