Owl Be Home for Christmas

Owl Be Home for Christmas (A Very Murder Christmas #2)

by Rosie A. Pointe

Blurb:

With six days to go before Christmas, there’s only one thing on everyone’s minds… Murder!

Holly, local dog walker and amateur sleuth extraordinaire, likes to think she’s her hometown’s answer to the dog whisperer. But owls? That’s another sack of feathers all together. When she’s called out to a rich woman’s home, Holly is shocked when she’s asked to… walk an owl?

No amount of explaining will convince her new client that walking birds is something Holly can’t do. Or that owls are nocturnal creatures. Just when Holly’s ready to give up and go home, her client clasps at her throat, chokes, and keels over. Dead as a doornail.

Holly’s got no idea what happened to her, but with the local Christmas celebrations under threat, she won’t stop until she’s solved the crime.

My Reaction:

I read this tiny novel together with Donald, because (as you may have guessed) it was the annual 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back cozy mystery selection.  It's a tradition now for the podcast to cover a (usually Christmas-themed) cozy mystery sometime around/between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Far from completists, Mike and Conor typically just dip into the middle of series for their cozy mystery reads, and this time was no different.  It's the second in a series of three books (so far).  

Given the nature of the podcast, you wouldn't expect this to be a particularly (objectively) "great" book, and you'd be right.  In my very limited experience of reading cozy mysteries, I find them typically thin on the mystery, but this was an extreme example of that.  There's very little actual investigation, and when you reach the end, there are some big questions left hanging.  (Like how in the heck someone who is deathly allergic to cherries could eat a cake without noticing the cherries stuck inside—after baking and icing/decorating—without seeing... that it's been tampered with... and that there are whole pieces of cherries... in the cake she's eating in broad daylight... I just... Look, why didn't the author go for cherry liqueur or cherry juice or something?!  It's insane!)  

Anyway!  

I found this less fun to read than the other cozy mysteries we've read for the podcast, but I guess they can't all be The Quilters Push Back.  Listening along with the podcast makes it worth reading, but otherwise, I wouldn't bother. 

Doggone Christmas

Doggone Christmas (Polly Parrett Petsitter #1)

by Liz Dodwell

Blurb:

Polly is juggling the care of her wheelchair-bound mother, her pet-sitting business and the sale of the family home. On top of that she finds herself having to deal with an arrogant but really sexy realtor, and Christmas is coming! None of that seems important, though, when she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation and must find the real killer before an innocent homeless man and his dog are wrongly convicted.

My Reaction:

Donald and I needed something to fill the gap between 372-Pages books, and it was still in the Christmas-y time of year, so we decided to read another "Christmas cozy" from the podcast's shortlist of cozy mysteries.  We went through the ones not selected this time around and chose one that was available to us for free.  

Well, all I can say is that I think it's a good thing they chose the book they did instead of this one.  I'm sure they could have found things to talk about, but this felt much more like a standard cozy mystery to both of us, compared to the one they ended up choosing.  It's very much what you expect from a cozy mystery.

I've forgotten most of the things that stuck out, but I do recall deciding that the author must be British, because a few words/turns of phrase stuck out to us as not sounding authentically American—someone was described as being "in hospital", for instance.  Just a point of interest!

Murder in Christmas River

Murder in Christmas River
by Meg Muldoon

Blurb:

Cinnamon Peters is one tough cookie.

Every year at Christmas River’s annual Gingerbread Junction Competition, pie baker extraordinaire Cinnamon aims to win, taking down any competitor who gets in her way. But when she finds a dead body in the woods behind her pie shop just days before the big competition, Cinnamon realizes that there’s much more to worry about than cookies, frosting, and gumdrops.

Someone’s out to bring Cinnamon down. And they’re playing dirty. Only Cinnamon and a mysterious stranger who walks into her life one snowy evening can figure out the mystery.  But can they solve it before Cinnamon’s chances of gingerbread competition glory crumble?

My Reaction:

Yet another 372-Pages podcast/bookclub selection!  (Shared read with Donald, as usual.)

I don't have much of a reaction to this, aside from the podcast element.  It's not my personal cup of peppermint tea.  (Not that I drink peppermint tea; I don't.  The only tea I ever drink is sweet iced tea, and that's only at family get-togethers, these days...  But peppermint tea felt seasonally appropriate, so...)  

I've only ever read a few cozy mysteries, so I'm not really familiar enough with the genre to be an effective judge of them, but this was not nearly cozy enough for my tastes.  In my opinion, you should either go heavy on the cozy or just call yourself a regular mystery.  This was neither cozy nor much of a real mystery, so I'm not sure what I'd call it... A bland romance with an extremely lightweight mystery element, maybe.  Cinnamon, the protagonist, was ridiculously morose and self-pitying, as well, which made for a less interesting reading experience.

As for humor, there were a few moments of unintended mirth, but this was not one of the best 372-Pages selections.  Not one I believe will stay with me, particularly.  Even though there was a dog!  Even a cute dog couldn't save this one...