Body by the Henhouse was enjoyable, but I didn’t feel particularly engaged with the main sleuth or her family.

Jude Gray has set up a camp site for some extra cash. This week her guest are a hen party of six. There is some sabotage on the camp-site and in one of the fields harming a guest and four sheep. Jude suspects her neighbour who’s always complaining about the farm. But the sabotage is beyond his usual pranks.

Then one of the guests disappears. The other five hens all had reason to dislike or hate her. And what about that unsavoury character that hanging around?

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

I really ought to check the series before I buy new books. I had read the fifth book in this series some time ago and my memories of it aren’t too fond.

That said, I liked this instalment a lot better than the later book. Mainly because Violet isn’t constantly yapping about watering her tree.

And there’s a little continuity error. In this book, Violet calls the chief of police David several times, but in book 5, when she’s about to get married to him, she muses that he’ll always be Rainwater to her. She was on first name bases with him until she gave him a friendly peck on the cheek. Mind boggles.

Parker Valentine has just opened the doors to her Winery for the first time, when Gaskel Brown waltzing in. Gaskel is a famous restaurant critic and food blogger, so Parker is desperate to impress.

Sadly, Gaskel only tastes the chardonnay, seems not to be impressed, dumps the remainder of his glass in a vase with daisies and goes to the bathroom. Where Parker finds him some time later, dead.

In comes the detective du jour - an old classmate of Parker - who immediately starts questioning Parker. Apparently, he does not need to check with this colleague. Guess he’s already been fully informed over the phone or something. He shares with Parker the cause of death looks like poisoning. Parker is so shocked her chardonnay or the glass she handled could have been tampered with, that she forgets to mention that Gaskel dumped his drink in the vase.

Soon social media erupts with accusations of #killerchardonnay. Although there are some people that suggests it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.

Meanwhile, Parker fears her fledgling business will be nipped in the bud. She decides to chat with a few of the people that were present. And she must have hit a nerve, too. No sooner has she finished her first round of chatting (I don’t think she right out accused anyone of killing Gaskel) then she finds out her hip harness has been sabotaged, almost causing her to fall to her death. (The quick reflexes of the detective du jour prevent that.)

An enjoyable read, though the killer was easy to guess. Parker misses some pretty obvious clues (also concerning her brother).

Enjoyable story, but kind of devoid of conflict.

Props for the original meet-cute.

Leighton finds a book on her shelve she doesn't remember buying. She starts reading, but soon enough it seems the book was a misprint: before the romance got spicy the book runs out of printed pages. A little bothered, Leigh goes to sleep and in her dream she continues the story from her book. It doesn't take long for her to fall for the book's hero.

The feeling seems to be mutual, but Leigh is convinces Killian is not real. She gives him a push and both tumble into her world.

There's lots of couple getting to know each other stuff, but very little "how the heck did this fictional character end up in my life? Am I hallucinating? Do I have a brain tumor?'

Story dragged a bit towards the end.

It was an OK read. I was a little disappointed in a way that it wasn’t as gripping as other fake relationship stories I’ve read recently.

Either I’m getting tired of the he-can’t-possibly-like-me-in-that-way cliché (didn’t like it in the previous story either) or it made even less sense in this story. So Olive thinks Adam likes someone else, an “amazing girl”, who is in the same department. Well, it should be easy enough to figure out who she is. There aren’t that many women in the Biology department and even less between the age brackets of 25 and 35. She could have done what she does best and do some research to find the most likely candidate for Adam’s affections.

Holden’s a hoot, though.

I loved Lana. Loved Christian. Their romance was fast paced and witty. (Loved Penny too. Can there be a book about her too, dear author, please, please?)

I thought the Lana is a n00b about film because she doesn’t watch TV was driven a bit far. I mean, I don’t own a TV either, but I’ve seen Sabrina and Bridget Jones’ Diary and I’ve heard of 50 First Dates. Lana grew up with two best friends who seem to like movies. Surely, when hanging out together they’ve watched a few movies. (I doubt that when they hung out they did each other’s nails and hair. Neither Lana nor Winter seems the type.)

Now I must get me one of those T-shirts, as I too am an engineer.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Works best if you like over-the-top characters and situations. I don’t, at least not at the moment. So I took this story probably way too seriously.

After a nasty fall where she bumped her head, Kalli can hear people’s thoughts when she touches them. This comes in handy when a man is found dead in the shop of her friend and roommate/landlord, and the friend is the main suspect. Only problem is, Kalli has severe germaphobia and doesn’t like touching people.

For whatever reason, everyone, including the detectives on the case, assume the victim was shot to hurt Jaz (Kalli’s friend). It’s not until almost 80 pages after the murder that one of cops says that is possible the killer was one of the victim’s enemies.

Shouldn’t that have been their first assumption? Rather than the assumption the killer cares so little about human life in general they would kill, in cold blood, a complete stranger?

I don’t like the case detective much. Obviously he’s going to be the love interest, because Kalli is attracted to him (and her mom would have introduced the two if they hadn’t met under different circumstances already). But he immediately starts saying she should butt out of his case. Even before she has done anything butt-in worthy.

Everything she does he finds “butting in to his case”. While his case should have been, who wanted the victim dead? His case, at first at least, should not have been who hates Jaz? Jaz did not file any complaints with the police about the acts of vandalism against her car or her home. Therefore, there is nothing there for the police to investigate.

Also, when a murder happens in a small town, neighbours are bound to talk to one another about what they have seen and heard. That’s not butting in to a police investigation. That is called gossiping.

Anyway, by the time the cops realise they’ve been looking at the wrong angle, even more stupidity by cop is disclosed:

Spoiler

- they team up with their former main person of interest and her roommate for the investigation;
- they did not ask the widow of the victim where she would be staying;
- when checking the background of the victim (after they learned his real name, by the way: wouldn’t that have been the name on his driver’s licence?) they had not found out he had a twin.

They claim they are good at their job, but none of that should have happened.

How do I hate the main character. Let me count the ways:

1) When she finds a card with a mushy love poem in her aunt’s room she immediately assumes the guy who sent it is the love of her aunt’s life. Even though her aunt has been married multiple times and never has shown the least bit of interest in the guy.

2) On the flimsiest bits of evidence she speculates wildly about possible scenarios. And despite learning all the time that her wild imagination has taken her way off base she does not change her ways; she does not learn from her mistakes.

3) She thinks Meghan must be the murderer, while admitting there is little evidence that points her way.

Spoiler

Actually, Meghan was present at the crime scene around the time the murder took place. The police should have questioned her already.

So she decides they must trap Meghan in a lie.

4) Being present where the police is investigating for no good reason. An author must not use a shoe horn to make an amateur sleuth learn interesting things.

I also hate the police and park rangers for their incompetence in running this investigation. It takes them a week (!) to go to the neighbour of the crime scene and secure copies of his surveillance cameras. The neighbour had to call the police himself and offer these. Then it takes them another three days (!) to

Spoiler

talk to the person in the footage.

Still, Max the ranger, has the audacity to tell a witness: “We would have had a better idea of the time he died if you’d have let us know what really happened before now.” Uhm, yeah, if you’d’ve bothered to do your job and run a proper investigation, you’d’ve had a chat with this person on Thursday, the day the victim was found.

I like cozy mysteries. I really do. But I prefer it if the sleuth investigates things the police can’t or won’t due to protocol or whatever. I don’t like cozies where the police is blatantly incompetent and the sleuth has to take over to do their job.

OK, I guess.

I got a bit riled at the ease at which some of the characters hurl accusations of evil doing at each other. Then was stunned at how quickly all was forgiven once the people involved stopped to listen to each other for a moment.

Spoiler

If you are entertaining the possibility that someone gets into the building through a long forgotten tunnel, then it is not likely the access to that tunnel will be behind shelves that are bolted to the wall.

Phoebe has invited a bird-influencer for a talk at her store. Part of the activities is also a birdwatching hike. The hike never takes place because the influencer is killed in the night.

Phoebe is surprised that detective Martin asks her to keep her eyes and ears open for any information on the case. Which Phoebe takes - wrongly - to mean she should investigate herself.

Meanwhile, Phoebe is having some trouble controlling her magic. Things just start floating around her when she feels anxious. She asks her friend Honey for help. Honey does a rune reading and gives Phoebe a clue to the mystery.

It was a nice enough story, though people got drenched by rain rather quickly. The clues were a bit obvious.

Spoiler

Who brings an incriminating bank statement with them on a trip?

It was a bit much that Phoebe started a cat shelter at her bookshop / tearoom.

And one mystery was not solved:

Spoiler

How did Connor know about that hiding place at the bird conservation?