Reviews

Holly, Baubles and Murder: A British Cozy Murder Mystery with a Female Amateur Sleuth by Victoria Tait

dollycas's review

mysterious tense

5.0

 

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Dotty Sayers has a new assignment. She is filling in for an employee on maternity leave and she is organizing a huge Christmas display at a Yorkshire county home. She is very excited to ready the house for all the visitors who will visit the house and grounds leading up to Christmas. She feels she has everything well in hand until a long-time guide is found dead, eerily laid out in one of the rooms.

The local police decide the woman died of natural causes but Dottie feels differently. She tries to share her thoughts with her partner in organizing the event. Zach is an American volunteer but he seems distracted by something personal. When he is found injured in the same place as the deceased guide Dotty knows there is something afoot in the house. She needs to take a step back and really look at the people she is now living with because she thinks one of them is a killer.

Dotty Sayers is spreading her wings and is much more confident than the Dotty we met when this series started. While I miss the characters from the earlier books, who can now be found in the spinoff Waterwheel Cafe Mysteries
, I am really enjoying the way Dotty is striking out on her own. She learned a lot working at Akeman’s Antique Center but definitely needed a break from the Cotswolds. Her travels have given the character more depth and have allowed readers to meet her parents and new people in her life.

The theme for the Christmas decorations was The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
‘s Narnia, and took several days and volunteers to get all the elaborate scenes set up. It also included a shop where guests could purchase pies and drinks. Games and places to chat were also available while people waited for their tours. The event was halted for a couple of days due to snow though. The author described all the decorations, the food, the weather, the house, the grounds, and every scene in such detail. I was able to easily visualize everything so clearly and felt several times that I was there peering over Dotty’s shoulder.

The mysteries within Holly, Baubles, and Murder are delightfully twisted together. The guide’s death, Zach’s secret, and vandalism at the local church, along with all the chaos of getting the home decorated for the masses, and also getting ready for a huge snowstorm headed their way really make the pages fly. Dottie works so hard to follow clues and uncover secrets in her quest to find the killer. It is difficult because she just met all these new people. Ms. Tait introduced some very complicated characters for Dotty to interact with and I loved how she stayed true to the Dotty we have come to know. Sweet on the outside but like a dog with a bone when she is trying to find the truth and fit a bunch of clues together. The way she handled the reveal was classic.

Holly, Baubles, and Murder is a splendid addition to this series. The setting of the Yorkshire home during the holidays was enchanting and the mysteries were intriguing and interesting. Dottie becomes a stronger protagonist with each book in the series. I wonder where she will travel next and what mystery she will be tasked to solve. 

cosmobrown1968's review

lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

 Following her trip to Edinburgh in "A Deadly Performance" Dotty now finds herself in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales helping to organise a Narnia themed visitor attraction at a large country house. As always, suspicious deaths follow in her wake

I love the "Dotty Sayers" mysteries. The characters are always well rounded and the plots are engrossing with plenty of red herrings to keep the reader guessing. A proper page-turning cozy mystery series