mystereity's reviews
1164 reviews

This is such a fun and relaxing series.  Francesca was the star of this one, I'm now kind of wishing she got her own spin off series (same thing I've been wishing for with Emma and Derek.  I need more of them!)  But a lovely read, especially that heartwarming ending.

 Callie has just returned home from traveling the world to the small town in Maine where she grew up. Staying with her great aunt Iphy and helping out at Iphy’s tea shop, Callie hosts a special tea party at Haywood Hall, a local manor owned by the elderly Dorothy Finster. But the party goes awry and a man is found dead, stabbed to death in the conservatory. Together with the delicious Deputy Falk, Callie begins to unlock the clues that lead to a killer.

Fall is in full effect, all the stores have their Christmas decorations out, so now was the time to skate into this wintery cozy. In Peppermint Peril is the first in a new series, and I loved this cute lil’ cozy, perfect to get you into a Christmas mood. A very nice, quick read, I sat down on a chilly afternoon and finished it that evening. I enjoyed the plot, a couple of mini-mysteries within the main plot, lots of clues and suspects that kept me guessing, while the warm community of characters made for a cheery setting (murder aside, that is!) I loved Daisy, Callie’s Boston Terrier sidekick, and there were some heartwarming moments that really bumped up the warmth of the season.

And that tea shop! Aunt Iphy bustling around baking up book themed goodies and serving up hot beverages! Heaven. As I sat here huddled in my blanket, I longed for a cup of Snowy Chocolate and A Daily Surprise!

An excellent cozy to get you into the Christmas spirit, In Peppermint Peril is a great way to kick off the Christmas season…any time of year! 

 I read the second book in the series a few years ago after its re-release and always meant to go back and read the first book. With a theme of British Cozy Mysteries for book bingo this year, I knew the time was right to dive in. There were only 2 books in the Inspector Guy Northeast series, which is a shame, I would've liked to know more about Inspector Guy Northeast; a likeable guy, part Beaton's Hamish and part Poirot, he's portrayed as being smarter and more savvy than his superiors, and yet is frequently ridiculed and admonished as not being up to the task, which he takes in stride as he works to close the case.

This was a banger of a plot though; Delia Cathcart is a spinster living with her mother and spinster sisters at Marley Grange and tending to her beloved horses. After her family realizes she's gone missing, they raise the alarm. Upon investigating, it turns out that a local resident also went missing at the same time. Did they run off together? Or did something more sinister occur?

This was rather like peeling an onion, where the layers slip off one by one until you're left with the root and Northeast does a great job of paring down to the heart of the matter. This was written in the same time period it was set, so while contemporary at the time of publication, it now reads as a quaint, almost civilized murder mystery, and that was a lot of its charm for me and I found it easy to time travel back to England in the 1930s.

If you love classic mysteries, don't miss this gem of a series! 

So, one of my friends on the Cozy Mystery discord mentioned she had just finished playing The ABC Murder video game and saw it was only $1.49 on Steam so I snapped it up and played for hours. Absolutely loved it and it gave me the idea to read the Poirot series from the beginning, which meshed well with book bingo.  Woo!  I read Murder on the Orient Express back in high school and wasn't impressed with the ending, so I've never read much Christie.  Perhaps a few years of life experience and a change in tastes led me to really enjoy this one. 

There was a lot I liked in this. This was the first  Poirot mystery, and I liked how a lot of of him was revealed/introduced through Hastings' observations particularly the descriptions of Poirot's eyes turning greener. The plot was all too common in murders; family secrets and money and the family in this one was up to their eyeballs in family secrets and money. Oooo juicy! I loved the misdirections and red herrings, they were masterfully done and you don't realize they're leading you in the wrong direction until many chapters later.  Really enjoyable and I gave up trying to guess whodunit around halfway through the book.

I did have a question; Hastings returned to England after being invalided out of the war but it's never explained why he was invalided out.  It doesn't seem like he was wounded or ill, so what was it?  PTSD? Again, doesn't seem like it.  Not really important, but I'm curious (and nosy!) 

It's Cozy Mystery Book Bingo time and this year's theme is British cozy mysteries.  I picked up this one for the Beautiful English Gardens square because no one does gardens better than Pru Parke.

I enjoyed this one, it's been a minute since I caught up with Pru, Christopher and the gang at Greenoak so I was looking forward to a great mystery and this didn't disappoint. I liked the idea of a medieval garden and the many Cadfael references make me want to pick up the series again! I really liked that the victim, Claudia, had enough of an introduction that you got a feel for who she was before she was murdered (it's so much easier to relate to the plot if you "know" the victim first, so kudos to that!) Add in the feel-good side plots of Claudia's son, Danny and the return of Christopher's old boss with issues of his own, giving this book a rich multi-faceted plot that really made me feel like I was there.

 Someone on r/CozyMystery was looking for a recap of this book because it had been awhile since she read it and she just got the second book in the series. It looked super cute, so I picked it up and read it to give her a recap.

And this was cute, I love Sawdust and I loved that he got his own chapters and his fear of the Floor Demon and Ceiling Demons made me laugh. It added so much charm to the series! I liked Whitney too, she had that perfect blend of likable, competent, confident and vulnerable.

If I had to give a minus to the story, it was that there was just a little too much misery porn. It seems like every other page had another terrible catastrophe and after awhile, felt like filler and detracted from the great plot to the point I had to keep flipping pages to get past the latest calamity. Ugh. Such a shame, the plot was top notch. Several strong suspects each with good motive made it hard to pin down the whodunit, which added to my enjoyment.

Overall, an good start and I look forward to reading the second book soon!