Rosa works as a professional cuddler or intimacy therapist. People tend to get the wrong idea about that job, so she rather not tell what she does for a living. Most certainly not her parents or that guy she's been dating that she rather likes.

But then she runs in to an old foe, who now works as a gossip columnist and has forgotten she is no longer in highschool. She tells Rosa's parents about Rosa's job - or some interpretation of it that may or may not be accurate. Rosa's mom his beside herself with indignation. She pretty much tells Rosa she is now dead to her.

And while I'm thinking that Rosa was absolutely right about not telling her parents about her job (though she might have come up with a few better lies), Rosa thinks it is all her own fault that her life is down the toilet. She goes to visit her parents. A trip she hasn't made in three years.

It's during the mother's rant that Rosa should be ashamed of herself and that she doesn't know what love is that I stopped reading. Her mom's a bully that has no respect for personal boundaries.

I received an ARC through Booksirens.

An unusual cozy mystery.

It’s the main character that is a murderer and there is more depth of character. If it weren’t for the cover and the title, I would have dubbed this a thriller, not a cozy.

Daisy Ellery so from a line of women that add magic to their services. Her grandmother was a dressmaker that put love and best wishes in the seams of the dresses she made; her mother put love and courage in the hair she styles. Daisy puts magic in to pies. Studiousness and calm in pies she sells to students, candour if needed. And her pies make men that beat their spouses stop.

But someone’s found out and they want Daisy to make a few pies for them or they will expose her. Daisy would rather not be exposed, but she also doesn’t want to give into the blackmail. She tries to find the women that are the intended recipients of the blackmailer’s pies and through them, her blackmailer.

Meanwhile, Daisy is also making a few friends and there’s a budding romance.

I liked this one.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Sam Jones - formerly known as Samantha Rathbone - fled to Heywood when her life in Hollywood fell apart. She'd rather not have people know who she used to be (famous actress in a day-time drama) and she flinches every time someone mentions "hey, you look familiar." Actually, she flinches less about all the murders that happen around her in small-town Heywood.

The mysteries were enjoyable.

In the first book, Sam's employer is killed and Sam is the main suspect, because she stood to inherit the shop. Though she only learned about this after Bonnie had died and you don't expect someone you have only known for three months to include you in their will, the police (or rather the town's sheriff) thinks Sam has motive. So Sam sets out to find the real killer, while fighting a mild attraction to the town's deputy - Jordan.

In the second book, Sam's friend Gina is accused of killing her ex-husband. His body is found in her place of business and he owned her about ten years of child-support. The ex is also a known drug dealer, so it's beyond me why the police are not investigating this angle. It's pretty easy to guess where the murderer lives.

In the third book, Sam and Jordan have begun to hang out, sharing a morning coffee regularly (not dating), when Jordan is accused of killing a former co-worker who filed assault charges against him. Sam wants to believe him, but she also has some doubts, due to Jordan's past. And Sam's own past which have left her with some trust issues. Nonetheless, Sam sets out to help Jordan and her past even proves useful to point out the killer (at least, it was useful for me. Sam mentioned a past memory and then pretty much immediately forgot its significance again.)

I read an ARC from BookSirenes.

Final Cut tells a behind the scenes story of a major movie production’s costumer. That is lots of details of how costumer Joey Jessop runs hither and tither to get the right costumes on the cast at the right time and within budget.

Final Cut goes into the the whirlwind of emotions Joey feels after she finds the body of the second Assistant Director and herself a possible suspect. But mostly it’s about Joey’s day job.

The sleuthing is moderate. That’s probably because the most likely suspects are people Joey would rather not talk to on a good day. Asking them “so, did you happen to kill Courtney?” isn’t really on the cards.

Joey does have a coworker that is bad mouthing her, if not full on accusing her of murder. I never understand those characters. Have they never heard of defamation of character law suits? And Joey has a cyberbully that sends her intimidating texts. I don’t understand that either. Why is Joey not blocking that number? Does she want to receive those messages because she is collecting evidence before she goes to the police with them? Neither is mentioned, so every time she gets a new message I wonder why my phone has a block function, but hers doesn’t.

For the most part, the story was okay, though too heavy on the day job not enough on the mystery. The climax was farcical. Joey realises who the killer is and wants to call the police. But first she has to pee. And she puts her phone on her desk while she goes off to the bathroom.

Against better judgement I hoped the story would avoid the cliché that the killer would come between Joey and her phone.

I debated whether to be generous in my rating, but

Spoiler

when a building with a highly flamable stock turned out to not have a sprinkler system

I decided against that.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

I liked the story, but I’m not much impressed with the people that live in the town of Wingate. I liked Aspen and I thought Mallory shouldn’t be so judgmental of her.

Halfway through the second chapter I was hoping Claudia would be the murder victim. She is a firm believer of “don’t mix business with pleasure”, which seem to be the reason she’s not nice to her coworkers.

Alas. There is always the next book in the series.

In this book Beatrice Wright is killed. She’s an unpleasant person that seems to thrive on picking fights with people and accusing them of being dishonest (cheating, stealing). Most people in town don’t seem to like her, but it is Mallory Monroe owner of a cookie shop that finds her body. Earlier in the day Mallory had a fight with Beatrice at her shop where Beatrice accused Mallory of using a cookie recipe that was stolen from Beatrice. A fight that was witnessed by the town’s detective.

During an interview he gives Mallory the impression he suspects her of the murder. It can’t be a very strong suspicion as Mallory is not placed under arrest. Mallory, however, decides she must find the real person that killed Beatrice to clear her name. Next to running her business.

Her friend, Kip, decides to help and volunteers Mallory to be the chair of the re-instated pie contest. The pie contest is part of the Garden Tour events and Beatrice was heavily involved with the organisation of that. Kip reasons it gives Mallory an in to talk to many people that knew (and probably disliked) Beatrice.

The first meeting of the Garden Tour organisation Mallory attends is that evening and is all kinds of wrong. First of all, all the chairs are facing the window. That means that the people attending the meeting have to look against the light to see the person in the front that is speaking. Second, when Mallory tells the group she has nothing to report yet because she has only been chair of the pie contest committee since earlier that day, there are murmurs of discontent. Those people seem to have forgotten that it was only decided the previous day or so to have the pie contest. I doubt there would have been much to report even if Mallory had had time to get up to speed. Third, when the fire alarm goes off and someone in an apparent panic starts the evacuation. Evacuations should be done calmly yet quickly. Not a panic where people are likely to push and shove and people end up getting trampled.

After that Mallory started to behave a bit stupidly in regards to her investigation and I became less invested in the story.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Coco Cline uses her social media and snooping skills to solve another murder.

The who gets killed and how is very obvious from the moment the victim is met. As is the first/main suspect.

Because the man seems to have two main activities: accosting women and threatening men, it’s actually a surprise he’s lasted this long in life. He must have always looked both ways before he crossed the street.

Because one of her best friends is questioned in this murder investigation, Coco decides to ask some questions here and there too. It seems the man has made quite a few people upset because every time he didn’t get what he wanted he made threats of cutting budgets.

Which seems rather an empty threat. He’s doing an audit. That means he checks whether people in charge of spending the budget can account for how they spent it. As an auditor he’s not in charge of determining how a budget is distributed. He doesn’t even get to advise on that matter.

It’s a good mystery, and I’m happy the police were not portrayed as incompetent. Though I find it hard to believe the police would stall a murder investigation for two days because they can’t find next of kin. But perhaps that was the perspective of Coco and were the police in actual fact hard at work.

I’m getting fed up with the “don’t leave town” malarkey. Detective Forester says it to Jasper and he then thinks he can’t even go to work because that is in the next town over. What’s wrong with having competent police officers say: “Please, remain available for questioning”?

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Great story.

Luke Tremblay returns to the village of Crescent Cove where he spent happy Summers as a child. He hasn’t been back since his aunt told he not to, so he is kind of surprised that she has left him her cottage and her shop in her will. But before he can start sort through his aunt’s stuff and sell the cottage, a man tries to force his way in claiming Luke’s aunt kept something at the house she had sold to the man.

Luke manages to chase the man off, but finds him at the house again in the morning. Dead in the pond. A fine looking specimen of the RCMP is in charge of the investigation. This turns out to be Jack, a friend Luke hung out with in those childhood Summers. Jack is upset about the abrupt way their friendship ended, and Luke is afraid that because of this Jack won’t look too far to find a viable suspect.

So Luke investigates himself. He’s an investigative reporter (freelance) so he polishes up his people skills and starts asking questions here and there, making people - himself included - nervous.

The mystery is good and their are plenty of suspects to guess about. Luke doesn’t barges in or is overly nosey, and when he is he gets told off about it. Jack’s a competent police officer. And though it’s a cozy cliche that the investigating officer falls for the sleuth, I was curious how that worked out in this story.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Throwing in the towel on this one.

The idea sounded promising: writer desperate for a plot for a romance novel gets distracted by her neighbour.

But Sadie is an annoying chatterbox and I can't see the attraction between her and Sam.

I also found her quest to find the owner of a ring she found in a book unbelievable. The ring was in a cut-out in a book in Sadie's little library. To me, it would make sense to find out who left the book in the little library. Sadie (and Sam) however, decides she must find out who last had the book before it was donated in a box to a church library, where it was sold at a rummage sale. If Sadie's right, this would mean that the person who bought the book at the rummage sale did not look into the book before it was put in the little library.

I'm a book lover, I cannot image someone would buy a book at a rummage sale and not look into it. It might have happened if the person specifically bought a book to leave it in a free library. But that doesn't make much sense either.

I might have liked this book better if Sam and Sadie had discussed this flaw in her plan. Alas, they did not. They talked a bit about themselves while waiting for someone that was on holiday to return a phone call.

And then little things start to annoy too, such that except for the burgers Sam once made, he seems to be eating take out all the time. 1) it's a small island, it can't have that many take out places; 2) he's lived on his own for years, hasn't he learned to cook?

My curiosity to find out who the ring belonged to lost out to the dull dialogue between Sam and Sadie.

Definitely could use more pep.

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

Frankie used to be a bit of a flake. Never been able to hold on to a job for more than six months. That is until her friend Honey pretty much forces her to do the flowers for her wedding. Frankie has found her new calling.

Three years later Frankie is in her stride dealing with bridzillas and their mothers during working ours, trying to help her friends through break ups and other hard times.

Entertaining.

I'm puzzled about the title.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.