A Corpse Among the Carolers

A Food Blogger Mystery Book 7

Author:    Debra Sennefelder

Genre:     Mystery

Paperback; Digital Book

ISBN #:    9781960511928

Beyond The Page Publishing

225 Pages

$15.99; $5.99 Amazon

October 8, 2024

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Hope Early is fully immersed in the spirit of the Christmas season, until the sounds of joyful carolers are silenced by the words "Ho-ho-homicide"...

Food blogger Hope Early always gets a hearty holiday laugh from knowing that the weeks leading up to Christmas are as frantic as they are festive.  But in spite of everything she has to do, the one thing she always has time for is the annual Jingle Bell Stroll, a night when the community gathers to sing their hearts out and enjoy each other's company.  This year's caroling feels especially heartwarming, until the final note lands with a thud when Hope finds the body of the man who'd volunteered to play Santa, a knife plunged into his back.

With virtually the whole town present at the caroling, the list of suspects seems endless.  It doesn't take long, though, for both Hope and the police to turn a sharp eye on the victim's bitter and vindictive ex-wife, along with his new wife, who may have been after his money.  Then Hope unearths a clue that suggests the dead man may have been hiding a sordid past and connections to unseemly characters.  But as she closes in on the killer, they're determined to wring her neck before she can ring in the new year...

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Hope Early has a good life.  She's finally happy with her boyfriend Ethan and his two daughters, and she's looking forward to a large family and friends Christmas celebration.  This holiday season is starting out well...for a while.  But then she overhears an argument between her 'Santa', Mitty, and Ralph, a friend, which ends up with Ralph pushing Mitty.  All because Ralph believes Mitty, the owner of an antique shop, sold him a bogus lamp.  While Mitty denies it, there's no denying that there's a problem to be solved.  Along with shopping, Hope can't help but overhear Mitty's ex-wife and new wife having their own argument, and does what she can to stop it.  

But there's more going on behind the scenes, especially when Hope is out caroling with her sister, Ethan, his daughters, and others -- and she discovers a dead body.  Again.  Now, while the lead detective, Sam, tells her to stay away, the main suspect's family asks her to help.  How is she supposed to say no to friends?  But will she be able to solve a murder, get her Christmas together, and do everything else on her agenda before it all comes to a crashing halt?...

I have to say that if I had to do everything Hope does, I'd be a wreck.  Plus, I just don't have that kind of energy anymore (alas!).  It's fun to read about it, but it tires me out just thinking about it!  She's a whirlwind of energy, and quite a brilliant sleuth, to boot.

She's trying hard to make this a perfect Christmas, but things keep getting in the way.  Things like murder and deception.  Angry ex-wives (more than one).  Not to mention that Hope is having little accidents -- and one big one that almost sidelines her permanently.  But that's all I will say about that.

She does her best to pick up clues with the help of her best friend Drew, who's a reporter.  Who has his own problems that have nothing to do with murder.  In fact, there's a couple of very funny scenes that surround the man.  It's all worth reading.

Without giving anything else away, I will say that this is a delightful Christmas mystery that you can try and find the clues yourself.  They are there, but not easy to decipher.  When the ending comes and the murderer is discovered, it comes as a surprise, which it should do.  And leaves us wanting to read the next in the series.  A very nice book for a holiday evening.  Recommended.

I was given a copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley but this in no way influenced my review.

https://www.amazon.com/Corpse-Among-Carolers-Debra-Sennefelder-ebook/dp/B0D6G64B46/ref

Goodreads:    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7076851130

More on Debra Sennefelder's Books:    https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/debra-sennefelder/

A Corpse At The Witching Hour (Food Blogger Mysteries Book 6)

Author:    Debra Sennefelder

Genre:     Mystery

Paperback; Digital Book

ISBN #:    9781960511393

Beyond The Page Publishing

228 Pages

$14.99; $5.99 Amazon

October 6, 2023

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When her best friend's Aunt Issy falls ill, food blogger Hope Early agrees to help him hand out Halloween candy at his aunt's house, which is rumored to be cursed.  A murder-suicide took place there a century ago, and legend has it that a woman has died there every twenty years since -- on Halloween.  Hope doesn't really believe in curses or ghosts, but when all the trick-or-treaters are gone and she discovers a woman's dead body on the front lawn, she wonders if the curse might be real after all.

The Hope and her friend discover a cache of love letters linking the dead woman to Aunt Issy's husband years ago, and Hope is certain they've uncovered the motive for murder -- and the police are certain Aunt Issy is their main suspect.  Determined to prove Issy's innocence and nab the real culprit, Hope starts shaking other branches of the family tree.  But she forgets that Halloween isn't the only day people hide behind masks, and if she's not careful, Hope will come face-to-face with a ghoulish fiend who's not afraid to kill again...

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Hope Early is finally getting her life in order.  She has a successful food blog, sold e-cookbooks, and is finally getting a physical cookbook published.  She's even moving forward with renovating her barn for a kitchen where she can film her show and practice recipes.  Everything seems to be going smoothly, until her boyfriend Ethan changes their Halloween plans...

The plans she had with him and his two daughters, where they were going to go trick-or-treating.  It appears that his ex-wife, now out of rehab, has decided she wants the girls for Halloween, so Hope really can't do much.  But her best friend Drew comes to the rescue when he wants Hope to help give out candy at his ailing Aunt Issy's home, which is reputed to be haunted.  Hope loves both Drew and Issy, so she's happy to do so.  

When Hope is cleaning up the front yard after the evening is done, she's greeted with an unwelcome surprise: there's a dead body dressed like a witch sitting on the lawn.  Definitely dead.  And no one seems to know who the woman is; not Hope, Issy, Drew, or anyone in town.  So who was this woman, and why was she here?  All Hope knows is that the woman has been following her for a couple of days, but that's all the information she has.

Then Drew and Hope find old letters in a box that's been stuffed in the walls of the home that Drew is renovating.  Reading them, they find that they're connected to Issy's late husband.  Does Issy know the source of the letters?  She's too ill to ask, so they decide to keep it quiet for a while.  But doing so could compromise the investigation.  And when Drew's family members might be implicated in the murder, he asks for Hope's help.  Even when the police warn her to stay out of it, she knows she can't.  But could it lead to her own murder as well?...

This is the sixth book in the series, and I was taken by how good it was.  Although I felt that it had a slow start, once the body was found, things began to pick up the pace.  It was more a mystery-within-a-mystery, and I absolutely love it when that happens.  Solving two mysteries at once is wonderful for the brain.  And this was definitely a good book for that to occur.

Hope knows she has to ruffle feathers to get to the truth, but she forges ahead anyway.  Poor Drew has 

his own problems to sort out, so he's not much help in this one, but her sister is along for the ride.  It's an interesting tale to be told, and clues go from one end to the other, but nothing seems to be giving the truth of the matter.  Confusion, misdirection, intrigue and too many secrets abound in this mystery, yet it all works together well.

When we come to the end of the story and the killer is revealed, it was a surprise to me; but then again, it was supposed to be.  It's a delightful narrative that pulls you right from the murder and keeps you from putting down the book until the end.  Highly recommended.

I was given an advance copy from the publisher and NetGalley but this in no way influenced my review.

https://www.amazon.com/Corpse-Witching-Hour-Blogger-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0CKM7LTGJ/ref

Goodreads:    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5934846060

More on Debra Sennefelder's Books:    https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/debra-sennefelder/

The Uninvited Corpse (A Food Blogger Mystery #1)

Author:  Debra Sennefelder
Genre:   Mystery

Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781496715920
Kensington Publishing
368 Pages
$5.29; $5.03 Amazon
March 28, 2018

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Leaving behind a failed career as a magazine editor and an embarrassing stint on a reality baking show, newly divorced lifestyle entrepreneur Hope Early thought things were finally on the upswing -- until she comes face-to-face with a murderer...

Hope's schedule is already jam packed with recipe testing and shameless plugs for her food blog as she rushes off to attend a spring garden tour in the charming town of Jefferson, Connecticut.  Unfortunately, it isn't the perfectly arranged potted plants that grab her attention -- it's the bloody body of reviled real estate agent Peaches McCoy...

One of the tour guests committed murder, and all eyes are on Hope's older sister, Claire Dixon -- who, at best, saw Peaches as a professional rival.  And suspicions really heat up when another murder occurs the following night.  Now, with two messy murders shaking Jefferson and all evidence pointing to Claire, Hope must set aside her burgeoning brand to prove her sister's innocence.  But the closer she gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer intent on making sure her life goes permanently out of style...

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Hope Early moved back to her hometown after losing her husband and her job, and losing on a television reality show.  Now she's moved into a farmhouse, raises chickens, and makes her living with her home and cooking blog.  Things seem to be going well, at least until she goes to a friend's book signing party...

While there, she finds that her sister Claire's nemesis, real estate agent Peaches McCoy, has arrived uninvited and is rude to everyone.  When Hope finds Peaches murdered in the study of her friend Audrey's home, that's bad enough.  But when Claire is the prime suspect for the murder, that's worse.  And when Hope decides to investigate trying to find out who the killer is, things go completely downhill.  Now she's in the sights of a killer, and Claire's next home might be a prison cell.  If Hope doesn't figure this out soon, both Early girls are going to be losing their lives in one way or another...

This is the first in a new series, and I really would have liked to enjoy it.  But there were things unexplained (which I will explain later) and my thoughts on the plot, which I will explain first:

First off, Hope is a horrible investigator.  She goes to peoples' homes and just starts looking around, without trying to be subtle, but subtlety isn't her strong point, since she just goes around asking everyone if they killed Peaches - which, of course, makes them dislike her, and honestly I don't blame them.  Who would like someone who walks up to them and accuses them of murder?  Of course they're going to think she's trying to find someone else to take the rap for her sister, who's the suspect.

Then, she's a blogger who never blogs.  As in never.  She states as how she's making her money from it, but she never goes on her computer to do so.  She spends her time making food for people to get information or ask forgiveness or going to snoop.

Her sister Claire is completely dense.  She lives and breathes real estate, ignores the fact she's a murder suspect, and rarely mentions that she's married with two kids, one of whom we meet in one sentence only - her husband is out of town on business (we learn he has his own business but don't know what he does) and Claire has dinner at Hope's a couple of nights while her husband's gone, then tells us how much she loves her kids.  Loves them so much she eats at Hope's without them?  Never spends time with them?  Never talks about them?  Sure, sure...

Things I would have liked explained were how did Hope lose the top prize?  How did she lose her job?  We get that her husband cheated, but somehow she lost her job as a magazine editor?  How did her husband get everything she owned if she were the one cheated on?  Why would a woman hold a grudge since grade school over something so ridiculous?  If there's more to it, shouldn't we have been told what that is?  None of this is explained, and should have been.

But the kicker - and the thing that may keep me from reading any more in this series which will depend upon the second book - is the ubiquitous 'love triangle'.  Never interesting, always frustrating, and as I've said many, many times before, if it were a man stringing along two women, you'd think he was a dog, so why is it okay when a woman does it?  It isn't.  The way it happens isn't even believable.  So if it develops in the next book I can tell you that I won't finish the book and will not read any more in the series.  For that alone, this book was a disappointment.  I do hope that this isn't going to become one.  I also hope that Meg doesn't become the 'evil nemesis'.  I really loathe that in books.

When the murderer was discovered, it might have been a surprise, but by the end of the book I really didn't care since there were so many slow parts with things that just weren't relevant to the murder, and the subject kept coming up about her failed career and reality show with no details about how they ended and why.  Details count.

https://www.amazon.com/Uninvited-Corpse-Food-Blogger-Mystery/dp/1496715926?SubscriptionId

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3381696168

More on Debra Sennefelder's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/debra-sennefelder/