Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781496731746
Kensington Publishing
352 Pages
$8.99; $6.99 Amazon
July 26, 2022
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
After a career on Wall Street, Lindsey is making a different kind of dough in a pretty lakeside village, and the upcoming blueberry festival -- including the pie-eating contest her bakery is hosting -- is the highlight of the summer. But soon Beacon Harbor runs into a patch of trouble.
A local real estate agent gets pranked. A parade float gets pelted with water balloons. It's all laughed off until the stunts start escalating -- and looking more like sabotage. Asthe event turns into a debacle complete with rampaging goats, Lindsey's sweetheart, a former SEAL, starts investigating. But the juicy mystery takes a bitter turn when a man -- dressed up as a Viking -- is found dead in a boat, and it's no longer mischief but murder...
✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽
Lindsey Bakewell left a high-stress job on Wall Street to move to Michigan and buy a lighthouse, which she proceeded to turn into a bakery. The town loves her cooking, and her shop is a success. She also has a boyfriend in Rory Campbell, an ex-Navy SEAL who is still trying to figure out what he wants to do after leaving the service. Then there's Wellington, her Newfoundland dog who thinks he's small, and her best friend Kennedy, a media sensation, who's sticking around because she's fallen for one of the cops there.
Everyone in town is getting ready for the Blueberry Festival when Lindsey receives a visit from Betty Van Hoosen, the town's top realtor. She's upset because she was awakened by car horns and finding 50 realty signs all over her lawn. Thinking it was just a prank, everyone tells her to laugh it off. But when the 5K run is also pranked, they start to wonder who's doing this. Then every event is pranked in one way or another, and soon Lindsey is worried that her blueberry pie-eating contest is going to be sabotaged, too.
But she has something in store -- the sound of a goat bleating, and the discovery of a dead man in a boat. Now it looks like murder, and Lindsey and Rory, along with the local police, are out to find a killer...
This is the third book in the series and I have read them all. I have also enjoyed them all, with each one being better than the first. Ms. Hannah has created characters that come to life on the page, and with each book we learn a little more about them, and this book is no different.
With the festival taking center stage, everyone is on edge wondering if they're going to be next, but then a local is murdered, and the focus takes a different turn. It's entertaining watching them try to pick up clues and find out who is responsible; and of course, Kennedy, with a personality all her own, is on board to find clues. She also does something quite funny that doesn't please Lindsey too much, but still, it's something I find humorous and would never have thought of myself in her situation. Kudos to Kennedy.
Without giving too much away (I have said very little above that wasn't already in the blurb) I have to say that once the mystery gets going, it's definitely worth the time to read. There are a lot of questions, and several people that pop up as suspects. Each one had a motive, and none had a true alibi.
But when the ending comes and the killer is revealed, I found it rather sad; but murder is what it is, and you can't mask it. There is also a hint of what is going to be in the next book, and I am grateful for that, hoping that we don't have to wait too long to read it. Highly recommended.
There are also several yummy recipes with blueberries that are at the end of the book, if you want to make them. I know I'm going to!
I received an advance copy from the publisher and NetGalley but this in no way influenced my review.
More on Darci Hannah's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/h/darci-hannah/
No comments:
Post a Comment