Elle Hartford

I picked this up by chance and found it to be an interesting take on the amateur investigative duo, with lots of attention to detail!

I really enjoyed the modern feel of this cozy, and the strong friendships! And it featured a rewarding mystery, too. :)

Slight spoiler!!! –> I hated the ex and all interactions with him. Which is fine, it just made me a little frustrated sometimes xD All turned out well!

An intriguing sequel, not least because our heroine finally realizes she's made a mistake regarding you-know-who's relationship status! xD I enjoyed it, and I don't think you need to have read the previous books in order to follow along. :)

A great sequel!! Tons and TONS of cookie descriptions xD Plus, I really enjoyed the pirate theme. Just being able to hang out in the community created in this series is so much fun!

An interesting cast of characters! It took me a while to get used to the main character, who could be very opinionated sometimes, but I enjoyed the mystery.

Very human and diverse characters! And as a writer, it was fun to read a mystery set in the “book world” :D

I will say, the ending seemed to go on for a while and the actual mystery solution wasn't entirely satisfactory to me (slight let down after the drama of the sleuthing, I thought, but definitely plausible). But the way the characters ended things was very nice. The highlight of the story was definitely the character relationships! (And the dog!) :)

Very fun dialogue and funny situations! A nice light read.

I will say I thought the pacing was a little off, which is the reason for 4 stars, and I wasn't super in love with the characters themselves, but it was an enjoyable read.

Great for Jane Austen lovers! I myself always preferred Bronte, so I skimmed some of the conversations about Austen novels I care less about xD As a story, this was a fun historical read that came together nicely in the end.

NOT a cozy mystery. (That's not exactly the reason for my rating, but I wanted to say that up front for others' sake!)

This mystery had an interesting premise and was definitely well-researched.

However, I didn't really attach to any of the characters, including Roe, who I could never quite get a read on. And the conclusion kind of came out of nowhere.

[spoilers ahead!]

Let me explain: I don't want to penalize this book for not being cozy, but the problem is that it does seem like one (colorful cover, quaint setting, romance) until the last 5% of the book. Then, without any warning at all and really no necessity to the plot, there is child endangerment, violence, and hints at sexual roleplay together.

Normally I'm fine with reading un-cozy mysteries, but this one blindsided me. (Maybe it was because the book is from the 90s and genre lines were blurrier then?) And with that surprise on top of a love triangle and characters I wasn't totally in love with, I personally won't continue the series.

Loved the way the narratives came together! A nice, light vacation book.

I loved it! The mystery had some clever twists and turns, and a great ending. :)

And I just have to say–I read some reviews which take issue with the portrayal of Americans here, and I think that's being a tiny bit oversensitive. The group of Americans in this book was a lot like the wedding group in the second book: dysfunctional and sometimes callous, sure, but mostly in a way that allows them all to seem like suspects. I don't think they were meant to be representative of the entire country. xD

This book wasn't for me. In the author bio at the end of the book, it mentions that the book is a medical thriller, which I totally agree with. Medical thrillers are not my jam–I like Holmes adaptations that are historical or fantastical mysteries. There is a difference!!

[slight spoiler ahead]

In this book, the tension wasn't “who did it?”, the tension was “how do we catch him.” There was also waaay more detail about the dead bodies than I am used to. xD The narrative was very fact-based, which works for a Holmes adaptation, but I found myself missing the bigger picture sometimes.

In the end, I gave it four stars because I think this is probably a good example of a medical thriller. The plot holds together and the premise is clever, and I'm sure some folks like all those gory details. :) I won't continue with the series, but that's just me – that's what I get for trying out a random book with Holmes in the title. ;)

I really enjoyed this peek into Lilly's life, and the mystery was well done, too. I especially liked Harry – what a sweet coworker! :)

I haven't been reading these “further adventures” in order, but I have really been enjoying them. I think this is one of my favorites in the series so far. I personally found Rose very relatable and sympathetic, and while I had my suspicions all along about the solution to the mystery, the way it unfolded was very satisfying. Great atmosphere, too!

A fun and light-hearted read! I actually haven't read the first one but had no trouble following along. I found Bronwyn funny and liked most of the other characters, too. Will probably read more!

Loved this book – and especially, I loved this community!! The author is clearly setting up for a series, and I am here for it. Many of the characters are so kind and the way they come together is wonderful. I'll definitely be back for more! :)

I loved this sequel to Murder in an Irish Village. The wedding party did drive me a bit nuts at times, but it was great to see how the rest of the characters developed. Can't wait to read the next one!

Fun Magical Cozy!

I really enjoyed this magical cozy, and would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who likes mysteries with witches, shifters, and the paranormal. The setting is perfect and the characters are lots of fun. I love the descriptions of the spells and magic, too! Already looking forward to the next one :)

I loved this book! However, I think it's important to point out that I personally would not call it a cozy mystery.

A lot of cozy elements are there: small town, cute business, great friends. Because I knew nothing else about this book when I picked it up, I was a little taken aback by the darkness in the story. Don't get me wrong, darkness has its place – I did give the book 5 stars, after all! – but if you are looking for a cozy escape, this isn't the book for you. The narrator's outlook on the world is extremely mistrustful (with reason) and [slight spoiler ahead] the investigation includes sexual assault and some unsettlingly violent moments. In the end, it came together for me, but I still don't think it's entirely fair to ambush a reader with those elements if what they need is a lighter tale.

I had a lot of fun reading this! I think it's a nice escape for a Holmes fan. I found it at a used bookstore and picked it up on a whim with low expectations. It turned out to be a clever, well-thought-out mystery and a pretty faithful representation of Holmes (considering that he's been reincarnated as a little dog! haha). I enjoyed the way everything came together and am interested in the next one. :)

Should be a 3.5.

I did enjoy the thoughtfulness of the story, particularly at the end. But there was lots of remembering in the narration, which I found myself skipping through. I could relate to the main character, but only tangentially; I probably am not the target audience for the book!

This should be 3.5 stars. I would recommend the book generally to folks who like history and adventure, but I had a few issues with it myself.

On one hand, I enjoyed the premise of this book very much! It's a fun archaeological adventure, although it is set against some devastating history, so maybe “fun” isn't entirely the right word. [slight spoiler] I wasn't wholly satisfied with the way the riddle resolved in the end: it was clever, but it didn't click perfectly into place with the way the story had been told.

My main issue, though, was with the dialogue. It's snappy in some places, but too often it rehashes information we already know, or reads as the characters telling each other lots of facts they both already know. While I appreciate that all the main characters are very knowledgeable, I think the dialogue editing could have been tighter. In fact maybe having a main character who wasn't so knowledgeable would have made this flow of information more natural.

Also – and this is a small thing, but it alienated me personally as a reader – as a historian myself, I was a little baffled by the historical texts in the book. They read in a very modern way. I wasn't sure if this was a conscious choice by the author, or if in the world of “The Queen Jade” history is different than in our world, or if this was accidental. Despite the characters bantering about details of the documents, the issue of these modern voices was never fully dealt with. And while I do love those historical characters' stories in the book, I just needed their eccentricities (relative to their respective time periods) to be addressed (or written slightly more subtly) in order to keep myself immersed in the story.

I like the idea of the anthology, and some of the stories are interesting, but I agree with another reviewer that the holiday aspect is just a bit of background color really.

Also – just a content note – several of the stories involved children in danger/pedophilia, which jarred me at first especially since it is a holiday anthology.

I loved this retelling! I always thought Norse myth seemed intimidating somehow, but this narrative was completely accessible and engaging. :)

I really enjoyed the homey and practical approach to the holidays in this book! Not to mention the mystery itself, of course. :) Technically this is the second in the series, and I didn't read the first, but I was able to follow along just fine. I must admit that at about 75% of the way through I did see the end coming, but it was very satisfying and thrilling all the same!