Book Review: Death of a Tom Turkey (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery, #18) by Lee Hollis

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Death of a Tom Turkey (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery, #18)  by Lee Hollis  opens with Tom Farley and his neighbors in a snit because he's the last holdout to sell his house to a property developer who wants to build a resort. When Tom is shot at a pre-Thanksgiving community gathering and hospitalized, Hayley Powell puts her amateur sleuthing skills to good use. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishers for providing me with an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of this cozy mystery. I received a copy of this book for free in exchange of my honest opinion and review of the story. I loved the fact that this latest installment of the Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery  series had a theme around the Thanksgiving holiday and included live turkeys in the plot. It was good to visit some familiar characters. Since this is the eighteenth installment in the series, Lee Hollis didn't go into much detail of the background of those reoccurring characters; however, she...
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Book Review: The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman

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NetGalley ARC Book Review of The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman
The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman is a young adult novel published on February 4, 2025. The story opens with the character Amy discovering the bodies of her classmates, Sarah and Ryan, who are undoubtedly deceased. Told from alternating perspectives of Amy and Liz, both students are trying to find out who and why someone would want to murder two students at a prestigious boarding school.

I received an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of this book from NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group for free in exchange for my honest review.

When the story first began, I thought it was taking place at a college or university before I realized it took place at a boarding school. Other than that slight confusion, this suspenseful mystery captured my attention from the very beginning and had me on the edge of my seat. Both of the main characters were vastly different from one another but were likable in their own way. Unfortunately, other than Amy and Liz, the only other character I found to be likable was the soccer coach. The author does a fantastic job of showing the reader the cliquiness and meanness that can be found in high school along with the assumptions students tend to make without all the facts.

From the beginning, I was kind of expecting the story to be told by an unreliable narrator to some degree, and I couldn't have been more wrong in the two people I suspected to be the murderer. The author did provide clues as to who the culprit ended up being, but I ignored those clues!

The descriptions of the school and town were so well done, I could picture both in my mind. It was like I was watching a movie in my mind. I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman and would love a sequel. In my humble opinion, any tween, teen, or adult would enjoy this book. Five out of five stars.

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