MURDER IN G MAJOR (Gethsemane Brown Mysteries #1) by Alexia Gordon
Angela: It says going live. I’m like, please YouTube, please go for us. Just be wonderful. Oh, my gosh, is it going to work? There we go! Yes, we’re live!
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles, waving Hello!)
Angela: I feel like the first couple of minutes of it, I’m always giving us like a free pass, like, okay, there’s always this seven-second delay with going live so you’re awkwardly like staring at the camera and you’re looking at the window like, “Are we here? We don’t know.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiling and nodding) Right. Right.
Angela: Oh, my gosh, and then the comments pop up. Oh, you guys are so amazing. Tea with Danielle, Susan, Paperback, oh, Victoria, Lady Gizmo. You guys are so amazing. Marta! Oh, my gosh, yes. So, I went on to Instagram to do the, I always call it the highlight, but the story, so Marta (Ferguson) is amazing. I’m going to mention this now because she posted in the comments and I’m going to give her the shoutout because I posted this on Twitter, too. So, she made the first book in her series Free just for us, so all cozy mystery readers, she made this Free on Amazon. So, her book Demeter West and the Ghost Town Glitch (Mystic Match Mysteries book one) so you can get the eBook Free right now, which is so cool. I feel like we’re so honored that she made this book Free because today’s our livestream. How cool is that? And then one person tonight who comments, again, every comment is a Giveaway entry, is going to win the audiobook. So, I think that is just so amazing. So, someone’s going to get a special upgrade. I love how Stephanie’s smiling like, “Yeah, that’s great.”
Stephanie: That’s awesome.
Angela: I think that’s so sweet, though, that she made it Free because as soon as I saw that in the email, I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, this makes us such an official club!” She’s making the book Free because of our livestream.
Oh, as the dog growls, he’s like, “Yeah, she does.” And then if someone, I was going to say, I love how like the notes are at the back and you got to love how big I wrote it because I didn’t want to forget. So, Kensington has been amazing this month. So, there was the Twitter Giveaway, I just posted the Instagram Giveaway winners. And then tonight, a second person who comments, again, comments equal Giveaway, is going to win a paperback copy of this brand-new cozy (Fresh Brewed Murder by Emmeline Duncan) that was just published today. So, you’re going to get this right off the shelves.
So, again, someone is going to be getting an audiobook, someone else is getting a paperback book, which I think is awesome because so many people read in such different ways. So, if somehow, you’re impaired, you can’t actually read the book, you can win an audio. If you want to actually physically read a paperback, we got you covered, plus she made the eBook, so all the digital readers, too; everyone’s covered today, which is great!
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiling & happy)
Angela: And now because I already held this up, I can put it on the ground. And I am so excited to introduce my two guest hosts because these lovely women have been a part of the Book Club for the longest time, and this is the first time I actually get to talk to them kind of face-to-face; this is digital technology and it’s weird to say face-to-face, but face-to-face. So, we have Stephanie, who I always think of as Miss Richards Reads. I want to talk to her like she’s my teacher because it’s always Miss Richards. So, you got to acknowledge her, got to subscribe to her YouTube Channel and Jeannie, who you guys have probably seen comment because she is so sweet and amazing and always posting over on the Twitter and Instagram. These women are amazing. I’m going to post all their social media links once this is over. I’m pretty sure they’re already in there right now unless YouTube did something with them; it’s possible YouTube didn’t save something, but I will post all their links again. Follow them; they’re awesome, and I’m so happy to be talking to them tonight. So, yay! (clapping)
Stephanie: Thank you!
Jeanne: Thank you for having us. This is so exciting, yay!
Stephanie: Yes!
Angela: It’s so cool and oh, my gosh, all the comments just popped up. I’m always so surprised when people comment; I don’t know why, I should be used to y’all because you’re amazing. But every single time I’m like, “Oh, my gosh!” Oh, and so Marta says she’s making it Free for today and tomorrow so that is just so sweet.
Jeanne: That’s incredible.
Stephanie: That’s so nice.
Jeanne: Marta rocks.
Angela: I am just so honored by that; that’s just so generous.
(responds to chat comments) I know, see everyone thinking, I just learned you could do this. I’ve had StreamYard for I don’t know how many years, what two now? I just realized you could post comments. I just learned about that (responds to Marta’s chat comment). Hey, I feel like you should just leave this one; like this is a good one to lead off with, “I love The Cozy Mystery Book Club” and then “Kensington really is the best.” The two girls, I always got to give Larissa and Michelle some shoutouts; they’re amazing. The Kensington team is just, I love them so much. They really are just superb. I mean, it’s also, they’re not, I don’t think of it as competition with books because if you’re a reader, you’re a reader, but I mean this book (holds up Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon) wasn’t published by Kensington, but yet they’re still offering a Giveaway, which is amazing, and I just think that’s so sweet and generous. Yeah, so, let’s talk about our book.
Jeanne: I love how Victoria (Hamel) is commenting on the bookish backgrounds. We didn’t plan it but, hey, this is just how it worked out.
Angela: That’s what I said when I saw it. That was the first thing; it looks so cool. I love how the white one is in the middle, too. I think that works perfectly like it’s the bookends of the bookshelves.
Jeanne: (two thumbs up) Yes, exactly.
Angela: Oh, my gosh, the things that make bookworms happy.
Stephanie: The little things in life.
Angela & Jeanne: (both are holding up a paperback copy of Murder in G Major)
Stephanie: I read it.
Angela: Oh, my gosh, I just realized we match your shirt with the flowers; the little things in life.
Stephanie: It was meant to be.
Jeanne: I love that.
Angela: So, what did you guys think? Yes? Enjoyable?
Stephanie: I really liked it. Really, really liked it.
Jeanne: (nods & gives an enthusiastic thumbs up)
Angela: I mean, this book I feel as if it really hit a lot of different kind of beats or just different things for coziness because you’ve got the small town, you have someone starting over, I mean, kind of similar profession, but in a different role, she’s now a teacher. So, there’s just a lot to this, I think, that hits the cozy notes.
Stephanie: And the Irish setting was just perfect.
Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: Yes, I feel as if I’m going to apologize on behalf of myself right now in case I mispronounce any of the Irish names tonight.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiles & laughs)
Angela: Because, yeah, if y’all read the book, I mean, I’ve mentioned this before, before we went live, you know, before the Harry Potter movies, it used to be Hermione, and then you hear them say it in the movie, “Oh, it’s Hermione.” I’m pretty sure I might say that about some of these characters tonight. So, I apologize, and I’m Irish.
Jeanne: (reading chat comments) It looks like a lot of the people here really enjoyed the book; that’s awesome.
Stephanie: Oh, yay, that’s great.
Angela: Oh, my goodness (responds to Victoria Hamel’s chat comment) yes, the gothic atmosphere; that is such a great way of phrasing it, I love that.
Jeanne: Paperback Stash, I totally agree with you on the intelligent cozy, there were a handful of words that I ended up having to look up. I was so impressed with Alexia Gordon’s vocabulary.
Stephanie: Well, she’s actually a physician, I found out, so it totally fits. I was really impressed.
Angela & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: Yeah, I think the reason why, I’m kind of, I’m trying to figure out how to say it, it wasn’t as if she just wrote our protagonist who’s, you know, highly educated with the intelligent dialogue; everyone across the board was very well spoken. I think I noticed it with Siobhan. I mean she’s very, you know, this woman is the fake psychic and she’s all over the place, but then she says the word germane and I’m going, “Hey, wait a second,” for some reason I saw that word coming out of her mouth with the dialogue and I’m going, “Hmm,” like everyone across the board is just, you know, got their GRE words going, ten-dollar words.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: (responds to Marta’s chat comment) Hey, already reading book two. Yeah, the spooky vibes. I got to admit, yeah, I mentioned this before, I feel as if this was a little bit darker. I mean, there are quite a few bodies by the end of the book.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Jeanne: Yeah, I love Victoria (Hamel’s chat comment) saying, “A lighthouse! She rides a bike! A poison garden!”
Angela & Stephanie: (smiles & laughs)
Jeanne: There’s like so many of those things that I could add to it, you know, “This great town!” you know, there are so many great things about this book that we could add exclamation points to.
Stephanie: (nodding) Absolutely.
Angela: I think the premise of this book, I kind of love how she’s supposed to, like, randomly end up in this town. So, again, Gethsemane, I’m pretty sure, I listened to the audiobook for that little, just to make sure I said her name correctly with that one. But I love how she loses her luggage, and she goes to the first place she can get to call for the police and help and then, somehow, she ends up with a job, and then she’s not even paying rent in the cottage; she’s just there to oversee the property. I mean it’s kind of just, you know, a domino effect.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: It all works out for her first, like for her to end up in this cozy setting; the fact that it’s haunted is beside the point.
Stephanie: Yeah, that would’ve scared me so bad, just sitting there and, all of a sudden, there’s a ghost.
Angela: I got to admit, I kind of like the fact that when she first meets our ghost, she loses it. She runs out of the house.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Stephanie: I thought that was extremely realistic.
Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: I appreciated that so much because I feel as if sometimes, they’re like, “Hey, there’s a ghost, how you doing?” I mean, she ran away, she went for help, then she goes back in and then when she sees him again, she picks up, you know, the nearest object and hurls it at him, then she does it a second time. She didn’t really care about, you know, she’s like, “I’m going to whip this.” Yeah, realistic was the word that I think I wrote down.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: (reads Victoria Hamel’s chat comment) “She wears the dead lady clothes!” it’s true.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiles & laughs)
Angela: That’s another thing, the town, they’re so generous. He comes bearing like two bags and she finds a Chanel, there’s a Chanel suit in there. I love how, like, I couldn’t say that tongue twister for a second. Oh, my gosh, I would be amazed if someone was like, “Here are designer things just for you.”
Stephanie: Uh-huh and everybody knew whose clothes they were, was so funny.
Jeanne: Yeah, and they complimented her on it. Obviously, they looked good.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: I mean talk about being lucky. She’s the same size as the former wife or the deceased wife, I don’t know how we want to refer to this because there are so many different characters who end up joining them along the way. But did you have a favorite kind of cozy element? Were you there for the paranormal? Did you like the lighthouse? What was your favorite cozy part of this?
Stephanie: I really liked the atmosphere and the setting for me and the music.
Jeanne: Yeah, I work at a school. I work at a boarding school, and I live there as well. So, I was super interested in all the school scenes because I’m like, “I see you, I see you with that,” yep.
Angela & Stephanie: (laughing)
Angela: I got to admit I thought it was really cute when, again, I don’t know if she actually worked with children, but I kind of get the impression she understands them. And when you mention the teacher, because the kids, they have their own little jokes. I almost wish we got to see her more in her daily interactions as a teacher and being in charge of the orchestra because I thought the boys themselves at the boarding school, I thought they were really cute, and they had their own little stories going on. When the kid ever tried to pretend to be his twin, and then you got them like, “We have prank week, we’re putting prunes in the cookies.” And then the other kid, his idea of a prank was just turning the books around. I thought that was adorable. I was there for the kids.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Stephanie: Yes!
Jeanne: And those things happen, I will vouch, those things happen.
Stephanie: I love that she covered for them with the prune cookies, too; that was so sweet.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: That was going to be one of my questions tonight. I was kind of confused at first. I was like, “Oh, this is the best thing ever,” and then I’m like, “Hey, wait a second, did they just get away with that entirely?” She didn’t even say anything. She was like, “Yeah, just move along, this is a lame prank.” I mean, if it was more intricate, maybe she would’ve called him out for it, but just like, “Hey it was just cookies,” eh.
Jeanne: Yeah, yeah, and I love in the end, I know I’m kind of jumping forward, but that the boys really stood up for her and kind of pretty much saved the day in the end; that was fabulous, giving them that opportunity.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah.
Angela: I love them so much. Again, I think that shows good writing to me because I wanted more.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: When you want more of a character, I think that’s indicative of, “Okay, good story, good characterization, good background,” because again I wanted more of the daily interactions with them. Even the one who kept showing up late. I mean he had his own little story going on. They all did.
Jeanne: Yeah, I really wanted it to be more of a reason that he was showing up late than he was smoking.
Stephanie: (laughing in agreement) Yeah!
Angela: I was kind of wondering that, too, because, so, we find out that the soloist, the violinist, he comes from one of the wealthy families; he’s a Nolan. I was hoping maybe his sister who’s a little bit, not spacious, she’s a childhood genius, she’s out there doing her own thing, she’s not in school, she has tutors. I was hoping, maybe, he was babysitting or checking in with her or something like that.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I was hoping it was sister related just showing him being a good brother, but then that didn’t happen.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah.
Jeanne: I was expecting that, too. Like, he was, you know, he was filling in, watching her, between the times when she didn’t have something to do or whatever, but I mean, as faults go, that’s a pretty minor one.
Angela: (nodding)
Stephanie: Yeah.
Angela: I mean, she was the little sister; this girl, I want to know more about her. She needs her own little spin-off. She needs to be in the next book. This girl was, what, translating the Latin of Ovid like, I mean, just for fun.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah.
Angela: And they said they wanted to get her Chemistry for her; she’s 12 years old and they wanted her to start Chemistry the next semester. The parents were really pushing her and, yet, at the same time, she’s not only smart, she was into the mystical elements. Apparently, she could see some of the ghosts. She seemed to know what was going on, although, she didn’t actually relay it to our protagonist, which I found very peculiar, because she seemed to know about what was going on with the missing books.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: We should definitely touch on that at some point in time because a lot of these characters seem to know more but didn’t tell our leading lady. But, yeah, the sister, she was very complex herself.
Jeanne: That’s right.
Angela: I’m just going to show you guys why I look down (holding up her dog) this is my Max,
Stephanie & Jeanne: Oh! Oh!
Angela: He’s on the lap and I feel as if I’m showing him because this wasn’t an animal cozy mystery so we’re turning it into a cozy companion right there (places Max back down on floor). I was going to say, I kind of love the fact, going back to the beginning, that she was a huge fan of our ghost.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yes. Yeah!
Angela: I thought that was really amazing, how I was going to say, Alexia Gordon here was able to show that she had a little heart-shaped photo. She had a heart-shaped frame and had his photo in there. She had a crush on him starting at seven years old until she left for college, and then she gets a chance to become friends with her idol as she’s helping him.
Jeanne: (nodding) Uh-huh.
Angela: I just love that for some reason, I mean, there were a lot of moments where I feel as if I actually just went, “Oh, that’s so cute!”
Stephanie: (nodding) Yes!
Angela: I thought when he put the blanket over her, oh, there were some really touching moments and I kind of, again, wanted to say, “Good job at the writing. I liked the little details that kind of came around with that.”
Stephanie: Yeah.
Jeanne: I agree, I’m all for romance, too, in cozies, but I think it was really great to see a platonic genuine friendship between two people in this case.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: And you’re right, I think that developed naturally, believably, and it was one of my favorite aspects of the book.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Angela: I was kind of trying to figure out if are they setting up a love triangle with our heroine and then our inspector and then our math teacher. I kind of saw a little bit of that and I’m going, “Okay, I don’t know if I’m invested in a love triangle. I want her to just choose someone and go with it because love triangles they just drive me bonkers.” But, I mean, just throwing this in there, we meet the inspector as he’s getting dumped brutally.
Stephanie: Yes.
Jeanne: I know, poor guy.
Angela: Can we just acknowledge that the girlfriend is crying; they’ve only been together four months; it hasn’t been too long, but it’s just a dramatic breakup, and then the heroine’s like, “Hi, nice to meet you!”
Stephanie: (laughing) Yes!
Jeanne: Poor timing.
Angela: Oh, my gosh.
Jeanne: (reading from the chat session) Colleen and Paperback Stash, they liked the friendship, too, “Awesome. Love it.”
Stephanie: And I loved that he was really irritated with her at first, too. The ghost.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I mean, yeah, he wanted to kick her out, and then I kind of thought it was really cute how he realized like, “Hey, wait a second. I need your help.” And then this was just me, again, my biggest pet peeve with cozy mysteries was when the person is just like, “Hi, I’m going to intrude on your life and go snooping for no apparent reason.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: I mean, they’re looking over the fence trying to figure out, you know, “Oh, I’m inserting myself into the town just because I’m nosy and a busybody.” I thought it was great that she was hesitant and rightfully so. She’s like, “I’m not a detective. I’ve never done this.” And even though he was her idol, she’s going, “This isn’t my area of expertise, this isn’t something I do.” And, so, she tries to get the psychic which fails, and then she takes up the mantle of being the sleuther. So, it was kind of, “Okay, I’m on board now, let’s go, we got this.”
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: But I kind of like that she kind of needed to come around to it in a way.
Stephanie: Yeah, because I get irritated sometimes or I always kind of preface it with, “You kind of have to suspend a little bit of belief” and this one was just very, it could happen that way in real life, and I loved that.
Jeanne: Totally agree, yes.
Angela: I like how I can show the comments. I feel so tech savvy, and the dog is going behind me, this is interesting. He’s going behind my back. He’s here though (reads a chat comment) “The inspector will be thrown in the friend zone.” Yeah, potentially, I can kind of see that happening.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah.
Jeanne: I mean, she did kiss the math teacher. Granted it was a cover, but ‘hmmm’ (pointing to her lips).
Angela: He showed a little bit of jealousy. He’s going, “Why were you talking to him at the pub? Why were you? Oh, did you socialize with him?” I mean, he definitely showed a little bit of that little romantic ‘hmmm’ there’s a little tension here now.
Stephanie: (nodding) Uh-huh.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: (reaches down to the floor) Okay. He’s going to growl. I’m warning you this is going to happen. (lifts Max to her lap) He was trying to, I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone else has, I mean, he’s tiny. I don’t know if anyone has a cat or a dog that does this. He’s been trying to push me off my own chair now. He’ll try to go between my back and the chair. I don’t know what that is.
Stephanie: He wants screen time.
Jeanne: (reads Victoria Hamel’s chat comment)Yeah,I’m totally with Victoria, and the fact that we have a smart black woman as the antagonist.
Stephanie: Yes.
Angela: I love that she was reciting the baseball players. She was like, “No, no, I’m doing this.” (talks to Max) “Hi, yes, Hi.”
Stephanie: (smiles & laughs)
Angela: She talked about the issue; she was talking, she threw in the backstory saying, “You know, my mother won’t approve. I’m not another cotton.” It was said like, what is it, “another little cotton picker.” She’s like, “No, I’m going to prove, I’m going to become a doctor to prove you wrong.” And her parents were so smart, and I love just the representation of (interrupted by Max) “Hi!” He comes up, he comes down.
Stephanie: (laughing)
Angela: I literally brought out treats to bribe him, too, so he has no reason to be doing any of this.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (laughing)
Angela: That sounded so ADD for a minute where I’m just like, “Okay, having a moment here,” and then the dog comes into play.
Jeanne: Max has thoughts about this book, I think.
Stephanie: Yeah, very opinionated.
Angela: (reads Victoria Hamel’s chat comment)Yes, I thought it was, yeah, “The Negro League Baseball” that was exactly where I was going with that.
Jeanne: I know.
Angela: I loved how they incorporated that, and I also loved the fact that she was so intelligent, so capable herself. I feel like, you know, this is going to sound so silly, but I saw this thing about Jennifer Lopez, like, “How does it feel to have all the females on your shoulders?” This woman, she represented women well, just in generally across the board; she was smart, she was capable, she was independent. I was like, “Bow down.” I thought she was a great character.
Stephanie: Yeah,I loved how much she wanted to succeed, and she got things done, and I loved that.
Jeanne: Yeah, (reads a chat comment)Paperback Stash has a great point, too, about the issues with overachieving and family. You don’t see that in a lot of cozies but it’s so prevalent in real life, and so it was really neat to see that incorporated. I’m with you, totally.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: I thought that was so interesting, especially with the older sister, she was making decisions based off the fact she didn’t want to seem like a failure and that could have been a very dangerous precedent.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I mean, she ended up in a nice small town with nice people. But she definitely did put herself in danger when she probably could have taken a step back. Instead of saying, “No, I’m not going to give up” even with the orchestra.
(Max barks)
There’s a dog in the hallway barking, they’re having a conversation now.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiles & laughs)
Angela: I thought it was so interesting when she realized, “Okay, this boy keeps showing up late. I need to remove him as first chair and promote Rory or Ruairi. I don’t know. Again, we’ll go with the pronunciation, but she didn’t want to make it seem like she was giving into the headmaster and the benefactor or the donor. She didn’t want to make it seem like, “No, I’m making this decision for myself, not because you told me to.” She really wanted to stand on her own in every single decision she made, which I thought was just so great and brilliant, because it was like, “No, everything I do is because I want to do it.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: There was just so much agency with that.
Jeanne: Absolutely, and I’m agreeing with so many people in the chat saying this was one of the best cozies for banter.
Angela & Stephanie: Yes! Yes!
Jeanne: Oh, my gosh, so well-written, so believable, so fun!
Angela: Oh, my gosh, did you have a favorite banter moment?
Jeanne: I mean, anytime she’s talking with Eamon, the ghost. I mean, they just, they’re on the same level intelligently, that’s what I’m saying. And the music connection, I mean, they just get each other.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Angela: I loved it when she’s calling him Irish. They have their own little jokes back and forth.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: And then when he’s trying to do the American accent and then she’s trying to do the Irish accent.
Stephanie: (laughing) Yes!
Angela: Cute. I love that she became friends with her idol; that just makes my heart so happy.
Jeanne: I know.
Stephanie: That was so sweet.
Angela: Did you have a favorite banter moment?
Stephanie: Probably the same thing when she’s bantering with Eamon. See, I’m mispronouncing it now. Eamon.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I know, I was about to look down like I did some of the little pronunciation things in the dictionary.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: We were like, “This is how we say the names.” This is a really random banter moment, but I loved it when she was with our math teacher. I love how we have him as Frankie, Francis, then we have the last name thrown in there, too. I’m just gonna call him Frankie because that’s the easiest one.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Jeanne: That’s good.
Angela: So, she’s in there, and he was able to help her because like every single person in a cozy mystery he’s friends with someone who has a tech on; he was able to get, you know, the whiskey or bourbon analyzed because everyone has access to a tech lab and that person who owes them a favor.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah, of course.
Jeanne: (laughing) Right.
Angela: So, he brings her the results, and then they lock the door to the faculty lounge, and then the Latin teacher comes in in a huff and they’re like, “We’re canoodling, we’re conversing.” And they were just trying to come up with all these different c words.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiling & laughing)
Jeanne: Yeah!
Angela: They’re like, “Yes, we’re having a conversation.” It was just so cute. They were just kind of going back and forth. I’m like, “Aww, he should be a love interest for you.” It was just so cute the way they were able to sort of just feed off each other in that way. I thought that was just really cute for their relationship.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Jeanne: Uh-huh.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Angela: That was a really random banter moment but that was my favorite.
Jeanne: It’s a good one!
Stephanie: Kind of like Anne of Green Gables. She found her kindred spirits.
Angela: Yes!
Jeanne: (nodding) Right.
Angela: I mean, she’s known this guy for what like two weeks, yeah, “Let’s go break into this murder victim’s house because that’s what we do.”
Stephanie: (laughing & nodding) Right!
Angela: “We’re a prankster,” naturally, like doing pranks leads to breaking into a murder victim’s home. Yeah, those two things are synonymous.
Stephanie: (laughing)I wanted to say, I wanted to bring up Lula.
Angela: (nodding)
Stephanie: Because she almost killed Gethsemane and I was just laughing and like, “What?” at the same time.
Angela: Yeah, I mean can we just acknowledge the fact, too, that this woman got poisoned and then the priest was like, “No, no, no, you don’t need to go to the hospital, you don’t need to report this.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: “You don’t need to press charges.”
Stephanie: “You didn’t have that much, it was fine.”
Angela: It was literally a bit of foxglove, “No! Go get your stomach pumped!”
Stephanie: Yes.
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: She’s checking her own pulse, and I’m like you’re still alive, you’re clearly checking your own pulse.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (laughing)
Angela: My gosh.
Stephanie: I would never want to eat there again; that would traumatize me.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: Also, the fact that there’s this poison garden in the middle of town and everyone knows where the keys are. What’s the point of locking that? What?
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: Like, first-of-all, you have a poison garden because naturally every cozy mystery needs to have a poison garden, especially with all the different poisons, not just, “Hey, we just have foxglove.” No, “We have wolfsbain, we have hemlock, we have everything you could need” because that’s normal.
Stephanie & Jeanne: Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: And then they have the thing locked, but the keys are right by the lock!
Stephanie: (smiling & nodding) Yeah.
Jeanne: (big smile) Irish charm for, yeah, I guess.
Angela: Oh, I just saw Susan’s comment “The audiobook is amazing.”
Stephanie: It’s really good.
Jeanne: Yes.
Angela: I listened. I read the book first and then I listened to it because I wanted to learn the pronunciation of the names. Again, for livestreams, obviously, you’re talking about it. This isn’t just a book, you know. If you’re writing a book review, you can just get away with not knowing, and I wanted to make sure I’m able to pronounce some of them. But I loved the way she was able to do the Irish accent.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: I loved the narrator. I actually wrote that down. I wrote her name down at one point because I just thought she was fabulous.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Angela: So, this one, her name was Jessica Carroll. And then, jumping ahead, stupid cliff hanger.
Stephanie: (big smile & laughs)
Angela: I was like, “Okay, let’s just start book two” and then it’s a totally different narrator. Totally different vibe, I don’t know.
Stephanie: She did such a good job switching between the accents, too.
Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah.
Angela: I just want to give her, what is it, like the snaps, the credit, give her a little gold star.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: Jessica Carroll nailed it. I’m so glad, so, you guys both listened to the audio then, too?
Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: I didn’t.
Angela: So, you’re nodding, you listened to it. You liked it?
Stephanie: Yeah. I listened to the first part on audio, and I finished it physically and I really, really liked it.
Angela: I was blown away by the way she was able to do the different accents and then she was able to do the different accents in different voices.
Stephanie: Uh-huh.
Jeanne: I love it when they do that.
Angela: I could not do that at all. I was very impressed by that.
Jeanne: Talking Music Mania, I love your comment about how you love that everyone in town knows not to eat what she cooks, and it’s just like a thing that you know because you live there. And I live in a small town, too, and one of my coworkers is like, “If you have a question about anything and you’re new to town, you ask Susie, because she knows all of everybody in the history of everything.”
Angela & Stephanie: (big smiles & laughs)
Jeanne: And that reminded me a bit of this book and this community.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) Uh-huh.
Angela: I, also, I mean, they know that she, I’m trying to figure out how to say it like politely, but like everyone knows she’s off her rocker.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: Everyone’s aware of this. They mention her starting fires. They mention, I mean, there were multiple instances of her, she spiked the tea, she spiked the punch bowl. I mean this woman was really going at it all throughout town. And I think our leading lady was the only one who’s going, “Why is she allowed to wander?”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughs) Yes! Right!
Angela: She’s dangerous but everyone else is totally okay with it though. I mean I don’t know about how y’all feel about that, but I don’t know how I would feel about someone willing to poison people just meandering around town.
Jeanne: Yep!
Stephanie: I thought that was kind of odd.
Angela: I mean, I don’t know why, that one, that was very perplexing to me, but again, I think I benefited from the fact that I read the book and then I listened to it again because upon the second read. I mean, I think audio listening counts as reading.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Angela: I noticed that there was one instance where she was blaming [makes air quotes] “she blamed the sister” but then they realized, “Oh, no, it really is her.” I’m going, “Wait,” I mean, I don’t want to *spoiler alert* but the sister’s not a good person. I’m going, “Maybe it was the sister.”
Jeanne: Yeah.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: I think maybe some of what she was maybe accused of maybe was the sister acting out. I kind of want more information about that.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah. Yeah.
Jeanne: So, I have a question. Well, two parts. First part, did you guys and everybody listening suspect Pegeen and, if so, when did you start to suspect?
Angela: So, do you want to go first, Stephanie?
Stephanie: You go ahead.
Angela: I was going to say, I, actually, again, upon the second time around, we don’t actually physically meet her as a character until halfway into the book.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Right. Right.
Angela: And, so, we only hear about her through dialogue, and she’s referenced through our ghost who she was friends with. So, again, when we first hear about her, it’s in connection with other characters who don’t think of her in a negative way.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: So, if you suspected her within the first like 50% of the book, I don’t know how you did that.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (laughing) Yeah. Right.
Angela: It’s not until we actually get to meet her, and I went back and wrote down, “We met her when she was in the market with Siobhan” and so maybe that was supposed to be a tip-off because Siobhan’s not all, you know, a normal character. I don’t know if that was supposed to be indicative of anything but, yeah, we don’t actually see her until the 50% mark, so if you guys got her right off the bat, I am very impressed.
Stephanie: (shaking her head)
Jeanne: Yeah.
Stephanie: No, I suspected her, but it was closer to the end before the discovery.
Angela: (nodding)
Stephanie: But, yeah, it was odd. We didn’t get to meet her until halfway through.
Jeanne: I only suspected her because nobody was suspecting her and that’s kind of a joke for the cozy mystery genre.
Angela & Stephanie: (smiling & nodding)
Stephanie: Yep.
Jeanne: Then when we found out that she didn’t go to Orla and Eamon’s wedding, I’m like, “Oh, okay, well this is something.”
Stephanie: (nodding) Uh-huh.
Angela: (reads Crystal Tea Knits’s chat comment “I knew one of the sisters did it the whole time). Yeah,I’m kind of with Crystal where I’m like, “I was definitely on board for one of them.”
Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: Yeah!
Angela: (responds to chat comments) Okay, so, you guys are pretty much like right on the bat. I mean, honestly, again, I didn’t really have a prime suspect when I was reading this. I was just kind of going with it because I’m not going to lie, the priest seemed pretty sketchy sometimes.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: I wasn’t sure if it was him or not because he was the one who was like, “Yeah, don’t press charges.” He’s the one who had access to all the occult books. I mean, he was definitely like, “Hello, I am going to be your red flag over here to come down this red-herring road.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiling & nodding) Right. Right.
Angela: I think it was Victoria (Hamel), she mentioned that on the Twitter account earlier because, again, the priest had all these moments; you’re like, “Hey, wait a second, is that okay?”
Jeanne: Right.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Jeanne: Yeah (reading Elle Hartford’s chat comment) Elle has a good point, “Why didn’t Gethsemane, once she figured out that she was so tight, Pegeen was so tight with these two characters, why didn’t she go straight to her?”
Angela & Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Elle did, and she is smart.
Angela: That’s a really good point and, then, I think I’m with Paperback Stash here when Gethsemane is talking to, I’m going to call him Frankie, the math teacher, in the pub.
Jeanne: (big smile & nod of approval)
Angela: And she’s like, “No, you’re the reason these murders have happened. It’s your fault.” When she was deflecting blame, I think I kind of moved her up my little mental suspect list. I still wasn’t like convinced it was her, but when she ever kind of was like, “You’re the reason the murders are happening,” and you know it’s not her fault.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah. Yep!
Angela: That was very suspicious (looks down) as the dog is meandering around himself.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughs)
Angela: (reads Crystal Tea Knits’s chat comment) Okay, “The wedding was the dead giveaway.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: I honestly, I realized very quickly because I feel as if women reading cozy mysteries, like, women would’ve gotten this probably quicker than a man would with the whole, “Why wait ten years to kill her? Why the ten years?” And in my head, I was right away like, without missing a beat, I’m like, “She was pregnant.” I knew that right away. I guessed that from like the get-go why she finally snapped. But you got to feel bad for the wife who’s supposed to be bright sunshine and then Pegeen’s just like, “No.”
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Jeanne: Yeah.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Jeanne: Exactly.
Angela: But I did, where did my little, okay, so, we kind of have to go through the list. So, she kills the first boyfriend; this woman, she really went for it.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: I’m like, “We named her, we just named the killer,” we’re just going to have to talk about it now. So, she kills the first boyfriend, but we learned Oisin is kind of connected to (looks to Jeanne) you said your friend has a daughter named this, I don’t want to mispronounce the name.
Jeanne: E-fa (Aoife).
Angela: E-fa. So, Aoife had a crush on Oisin and I didn’t put him with Pegeen until later when Eamon mentioned that the two dated. So, I didn’t put them together at first to realize she was going to poison him, but she killed him, and then she killed the wife of her long-time crush and then she killed the crush, and then she just went on a killing spree with everybody. So, she killed Siobhan with a bow and arrow because naturally you go from poison to bow and arrow.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiles & laughs)
Angela: So, she poisoned, poisoned, pushed off a cliff, bow and arrow; she beat Jimmy Hurley to death, and then she set fire to him, and blew up a building for Aoife and Teague, and then she tried to kill our leading lady with poison, again. So, this woman was very, very troubled to say the least. Here’s her little like, “I’m going to” [holds up notes of a long list of victims and how they were killed].
Stephanie: Chaotic serial killer there.
Jeanne: Uh-huh.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah.
Angela: I mean, she was, there were a lot of bodies in this cozy mystery.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: I mean, we always get at least one body, sometimes two, but we got quite a few here (holds up notes of a long list of victims and how they were killed).
Jeanne: Yeah, yeah, I was so sad with Aoife dying because I was hoping that she would be a good girlfriend for Gethsemane.
Angela & Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: She interacts with a lot of guys, and I was like “Okay, you need a chick friend, come on.”
Angela: I got to give our leading lady credit though. When Gethsemane meets Aoife and Teague in the lighthouse, it’s raining. She wants to escape the rain.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: She sees him having the affair and she sticks up for them because she realizes his wife is just completely off.
Jeanne: [inaudible]
Stephanie: (big smile & laughs) Yeah!
Jeanne: (covers her mouth) Sorry.
Stephanie: (laughs)
Angela: I’m like, “I don’t like them.” I’m just like, “There are no adjectives for what that’s going on.” So, she covers for him like, “Yeah, we were out walking, we ran into him.” I just thought it was so funny that she stood up for her and then they just sort of bonded.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Angela: And that was when she learned more about the actual mystery with Aoife. That was really sad because I kind of, I was starting to like her, too.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Jeanne: Yeah, yeah.
Angela: I mean, the fact that Eileen, the crazy wife there, is the one who survives.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: Yeah, right?
Angela: I was like, “Maybe you could have done like maybe switch that killing.”
Stephanie: (laughs)
Jeanne: Yeah, yeah, we haven’t talked about this yet, but I love, love, loved that Eamon composed a new piece of music, a brand-new score…
Stephanie: Yes.
Jeanne: for the orchestra.
Angela: Yep.
Stephanie: That was so sweet.
Angela: See, friends are nice.
Jeanne: Of course, that’s the music that they would’ve won with, because it’s new and it’s real and it’s his and the boys felt it! Ah!
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah.
Jeanne: That really got me. Got me right here (places hand on her chest).
Stephanie: (big smile & laughs)
Angela: I kind of liked the fact that Ruairi was the one who had the lead solo in the end. I was rooting for him before the Nolan boys stood up because it was Ruairi, and then I don’t want to mispronounce Colm, C-o-l-m, that was his first name, the Nolan boy’s first name. And then he played, and it was great, and then it was just great with a little like plus next to it.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement) Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: I was rooting for Ruairi, so I was happy that he got to be the one to have the solo for the big moments.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Stephanie: Yes, yes.
Jeanne: I admit I was still rooting for Colm,
Angela & Stephanie: (big smiles & laughs)
Jeanne: because she kept complaining about how badly these boys were acting.
Angela: (nods, smiles, & laughs)
Jeanne: Girl, if that’s bad, you don’t know bad.
Stephanie: Yes.
Jeanne: I didn’t think it was that bad.
Stephanie: (shaking her head) Nah, it wasn’t.
Jeanne: Stirring in the mix, “What do you think about that?” I thought they were pretty polite most of the time.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Angela: I mean, again, their pranks were “Let’s turn the books inside out.” He didn’t even mix them up in the rows. He was just turning them inside out where they were.
Jeanne: (nodding) Right.
Angela: They were still in the right spot.
Stephanie: Yeah, if that’s the worst, I’ll totally take that.
Jeanne: Right! Exactly.
Angela: I honestly, I’m kind of with you. I mean, I will admit I think the fighting was the worst that ever happened but that only happened once,
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: and I’m still not entirely sure what that fight was in reference to,
Jeanne: Yeah!
Angela: because Ruairi and Saoirse there, they kind of make a little cute couple,
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: and then it wasn’t until later in the story when you find out why he was giving her a leaf, and then Saoirse says it’s part of the poem that Orla wrote where the boy gives her a leaf saying he’s going to wait for her. That was when I had that delayed, “Oh, he’s so cute with her.”
Jeanne: Yes.
Stephanie: (big smile) Yes.
Jeanne: (makes a two-handed heart)So sweet! Love it.
Angela: I’m not really sure why the twin would be fighting Ruairi who’s also the smallest boy, apparently, in the class. I wasn’t really sure why they fought, but they fought, and then her brother decided he wanted to get in on the action.
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: I was kind of surprised, though, she apparently twisted his ear until it was red! I don’t know if she, that was my question like, “Are you allowed to put your hands on a student and actually injure them?”
Stephanie: (shakes her head mouthing No!)
Jeanne: I guess things are different in Ireland!
Angela: I saw this one comment, this is great (reading Colleen C’s chat comment) “She was the Renaissance murderer.”
Stephanie: (laughing) That’s perfect.
Jeanne: (points to Paula Charles’s chat comment) Paula has three boys of her own and she’s like, “Yeah, those kids were well-behaved.”
Angela: (smiling & laughing)
Stephanie: Yeah!
Jeanne: Well, my hat’s off for you.
Stephanie: For real.
Angela: Yeah.
Stephanie: I like how interconnected everything was and it all came full circle.
Angela & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah.
Angela: I wrote that down, too. Again, I think the second time around I noticed more details because one of my questions was actually answered because we found out when Orla was, when they found her, she had gone over the cliffs, she had been pushed off the cliff, and they saw the body, obviously, and they knew what happened and they didn’t do the autopsy; and, the autopsy is where you would’ve found out she was pregnant.
Jeanne: Ah!
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: And, so, we didn’t get that detail because there was no autopsy and that was explained within the first twenty pages or something because he’s trying to ask for help saying they didn’t do anything.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: But I kind of liked how it made sense later on when you found out the reasoning, and then there were other things, too, about her; again, when the realistic, you see a ghost, let’s throw stuff at him!
Stephanie & Jeanne: (both laugh & nod in agreement)
Angela: She mentions her own softball moment, and that comes back later when she’s trying to defend herself, she throws something at Peg.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement) Uh-huh.
Angela: I mean, I love the way she was able to do that, kind of set the precedent early on and then it comes back like, “Yeah, you already know that the character can do this” or “Oh, yeah, that detail makes sense now.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Jeanne: Yeah, I love it when authors plant something in the beginning and pay it off in the end. When they don’t that just drives me crazy.
Angela & Stephanie: (smiling & laughing)
Jeanne: But I thought Alexia Gordon did a really great job of doing that multiple times like you were saying.
Angela & Stephanie: (nod in agreement) Yeah. Yeah.
Jeanne: So, it made it really satisfying as a reader.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, from a writing standpoint, I thought she did a really good job with this.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I know, I was like, “I have the notes” and I haven’t even been looking at them. I mean, even the random little details to just make the characters and everything jump off the page; she had the inspector’s cologne, and then she had, our ghost had a scent,
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiling & nodding) Yes. Yeah.
Angela: and I love that the scent was how she knew that he was coming.
Jeanne: Yeah!
Angela: I mean, those little details are what takes the book from good to great. Like that will get you to go from like three stars to four stars,
Stephanie: (nodding) Yes!
Angela: because it gives us all, what is it, the sensory experience. You get all the senses working,
Jeanne: Oh, yeah.
Angela: you know, what they smell like, you can see things, it’s great. I mean, I will just go back to one of the things where I wasn’t sure how I felt about our second love interest, the math teacher, at first, because when he first meets our leading lady, he’s like, “Why are you here? What do you want? Are you going to leave him, what’s happening?” So, he was kind of sassy and a little jaded at first.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Angela: So, I kind of wanted to ask what y’all thought about Frankie and how he’s kind of changed or evolved over the course of the story. Because he also went from being the math teacher to the prankster to being the friend. So, I was just curious about your thoughts on that.
Jeanne: I’m super pro-Frankie.
Angela & Stephanie: (big smiles & laughs)
Jeanne: I loved Franky from the get-go. I guess, again, because I live and work at a boarding school, so I just saw him as one of my co-workers.
Angela: (big smile)
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Jeanne: You wear a lot of hats just like in any school you were, you do a lot of different things, because it needs to be done. And I just felt like each time his personality sort of adapted for a certain role that’s just kind of how it is and the sum of all those parts equaled (makes a two-handed heart) I love him.
Stephanie: (leans forward with a big smile & laughs)
Angela: (smiles & laughs) Yeah, like, he is real to me. He’s a real character. He’s a real person which is exactly what the writer wants when they’re crafting this fictional person.
Jeanne: (responds to Paula Charles’s chat comment “Have to run but this has been fun! Thank you, Ladies!”) Bye, Paula.
Stephanie: Yeah, I loved him, and I don’t even care if he’s a love interest. I just love having him as a friend.
Jeanne: (big smile & nods in agreement) Yeah, yeah.
Angela: I mean, he was so cute.
Jeanne: He canend up being besties and I’d be totally good with that.
Stephanie: Yeah, I love his personality.
Angela: I knew I had something pertaining to him somewhere. I’m like, “It’s here somewhere, I’ll find it eventually,” but I was just going to say one of the things that came back around that I didn’t realize until the second time with the audio, okay, because we have to talk about Siobhan, too. The psychic,
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: the psychic, in quotes.
Jeanne: (rolls her eyes) Right.
Angela: It wasn’t until the second time around when she goes saying, “I have information from Azul, my spirit guide,” where she goes back and says to O’Reilly, the cold case detective, saying, “There’s an important piece of evidence in the victim’s house that was overlooked.” And then I realized a second time around, “Oh, my gosh, she’s exactly right.” She hit the nail on the head because the key piece of evidence of the bourbon that was spiked that killed him, Eamon there, was actually still in the house.
Jeanne: (nods in agreement) Right, yeah.
Angela: So, she got something right! She was correct.
Stephanie: (laughing)
Angela: This crazy lady, who’s dancing in circles pointing at nothing, was actually right, so I wasn’t sure if she was maybe like one-tenth psychic or just lucked out with that.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Jeanne: Well, what do they say, “A stopped clock is right twice a day.”
Angela: (smiling) True.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) Yes.
Angela: I mean, what did you guys think of Siobhan? I’m just curious.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (shaking their heads)
Angela: I love Stephanie’s exasperated expression; she’s like, “No.”
Stephanie: I mean, she was entertaining, but I was like, “Really, you hired a psychic? She’s obviously just wanting money.”
Jeanne: I sort of appreciated that Gethsemane was, I viewed it as, like her making an effort to do something the way of the village by hiring a village.
Angela & Stephanie: (nod in agreement)
Jeanne: Even though I feel like she could tell from the get-go that Siobhan was probably not so much a psychic, but the bullying,
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) Yeah!
Jeanne: I just wanted to (fist punches the air).
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) Yeah.
Angela: With Siobhan?
Jeanne: Yes.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) Yeah.
Jeanne: Siobhan was not just a wacko; she was a bully.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: She was in the doorway and like holding on and wasn’t letting our leading lady kick her out of her home.
Jeanne: Right.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Angela: I mean, she’s not paying rent but still the cottage is just her area, and this lady’s like, “I am not leaving.”
Jeanne: Yeah, yeah.
Stephanie: (shaking her head)
Angela: “I belong here.” I mean, when someone’s physically pushing you to leave their home, you might just want to leave.
Jeanne: Right, and that brings me back to something that I love so much about Gethsemane, and we’ve talked about it. She’s such a strong woman and she refused to essentially let Siobhan bully her after that one incident at her house.
Angela & Stephanie: (nod in agreement)
Jeanne: She just kept putting her off and putting her off. And that was, I mean, (fist pump) go Gethsemane! (raises each hand with devil horns).
Angela & Stephanie: (big smiles & laughing)
Angela: I love that little hand gesture. I love that. That was so cute. I mean I like how she was like, “No, I want the priest first.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: She kind of gave her excuses without being mean, but you got where she was going and coming from.
Jeanne: Right, right.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) Yeah.
Angela: “Oh, no, I want the priest to do it, you do the exorcism. Oh, no, I want to look up the best time to have you come.”
Jeanne: Right.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I mean, she was able to do it in a kind of nice way, but the same time it was still forceful.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I mean, again, I’m not, I’m not very, I would be just like cowering, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry (waving) have a nice day.”
Stephanie: (laughing)
Jeanne: (laughing) Go away.
Angela: That woman was a lot to handle!
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: But she didn’t back down at all.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Angela: I would’ve.
Jeanne: Smart protagonist! So smart.
Angela: Have you ever seen Just Like Heaven with Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon?
Stephanie: (smiles & nods in agreement)
Angela: There’s a scene where he’s in this haunted apartment and he’s bringing in the Ghostbusters team, and he’s got a priest for doing the exorcism.
Jeanne: (big smile)
Angela: He’s got every single type of ghost whisperer coming through and they’re all, Reese Witherspoon is standing next to him as the ghost and they’re just walking around her, and he’s like pointing, “There she is! There she is!” I mean Siobhan’s going around and Eamon knows that she can’t see him, but I just thought it was so funny the way she’s like, “There, in the corner!” and there was nothing there. I mean, she was just making that one up.
Stephanie: And the dramatics, that’s what cracked me up.
Jeanne: (nodding) Yes.
Angela: So, my favorite was when she’s like, “Do you need something? Do you need to sit down? Do you need the bathroom?”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles, they burst out laughing)
Angela: She’s like, “What’s going over there?” She started offering her like all these different things that she might need.
Jeanne: Yeah!
Angela: Like when she ever said, “the bathroom” I was laughing out loud because I did not expect her to say that.
Stephanie: (big smile, nodding) Yep.
Jeanne: (big smile, nodding) Right, right. So good.
Angela: (responds to Renee’s chat comment “85 of 100 pounds to hire the psychic. That’s so much”) Yes! She had to actually physically push her.
Stephanie: And she got it down. I think it was originally 150.
Jeanne: Right, that’s right! She negotiated down.
Angela: (responds to Vonnie Jeffers’s chat comment showing a pumped-arm emoji) I like the little arms like, “Yes.”
Stephanie: (big smile & laughing) Yes!
Jeanne: Yes.
Angela: (responds to Marta’s chat comment) This is true. Siobhan was a little much. Yeah, your kind of like, “Hey, what’s going on?” It wasn’t until she had the arrow in the chest where you’re like, “Okay, she’s not the killer.”
Jeanne: (nods in agreement) Right.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Angela: (responds to Coffee Music Mania’s chat comment) I kind of love how we’re all like, “Yeah, our leading lady’s got this!”
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: Gethsemane! Hashtag Gethsemane Rocks!
Jeanne: I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and I read a couple of books after it, so forgive me if I’m just not remembering, but did Gethsemane ever get her luggage?
Angela: No, she did not because I wrote that down.
Stephanie: (shaking her head with a frown)
Jeanne: (smiles with wide eyes) What!?
Angela: I’m also curious because I travel myself or at least pre-Covid I traveled quite a bit, and you would never put the important stuff in your luggage.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: You put your ID and money in your carry-on.
Stephanie: Yes.
Jeanne: (touches her nose then points her finger towards Angela in agreement)
Angela: So, I’m kind of curious about that component of this, just a smidge.
Jeanne: Right.
Stephanie: Because she’s well-traveled.
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: That was why I was kind of like, “Hmm.”
Stephanie: Yeah, somebody in the comments, I don’t remember who it was, but at the beginning they said, “I wonder if in the second book she’ll find her luggage.”
Angela: That would be amazing.
Stephanie: That would be so cute.
Jeanne: That would be great.
Angela: I’m also kind of curious, again, this is me, because at one point I was accepted, I was thinking about going to the University of Glasgow. So, again, I was actually looking into moving across, I was not in the same position as her, but I was looking into things, and so I was thinking like, “Oh, you can mail yourself stuff. You can do this.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: You can buy things when you get there. And, so, with her I’m going, “How many bags of luggage did you have?” if you were actually moving, moving.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: And then “How are people able to actually steal all of those bags?” I have subsequent questions about the luggage.
Jeanne: (laughing)
Angela: Which is why I think I appreciated the comment early on like, “Is she going to find it?”
Stephanie: (laughing) Yes.
Angela: I mean, how do you sort out the amount of luggage of, “Yeah, I’m moving to this place.” That’s a lot of luggage!
Jeanne: Yeah, but didn’t she end up, it wasn’t planned for a long time, like she lost out on that job that she thought she was going to get.
Angela & Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: And this just sort of slipped in as a back-up plan, so maybe she didn’t have as much stuff; even a couple of pieces of luggage, that’s like, “Give it back, man!”
Angela: Well, even then it’s got to be a pretty decent size bag.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Jeanne: (nods in amazement) Right, right.
Angela: I mean, how do you just walk away? I’m picturing the bag coming out of the shoot and you’re like dragging three bags that are just huge behind you.
Stephanie: (big smile & laughs)
Angela: I mean, I’m trying to figure that part out because that would be very difficult for the thief.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: Because, also, how do you know all of those bags go with the same person? I mean, was it a set? Did they all look alike?
Jeanne: Right. (laughing) So many questions!
Angela: Again, I wasn’t kidding, I legit was writing them down. I was like, “How did this happen?” But at the same time, I didn’t want to pull too much on that thread because I like the book.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiling & laughing) Yeah! Yeah!
Angela: I always wanted to just accept the premise that, “Oh, yes, that’s what happened.”
Jeanne: Yeah, (repeats chat comment) Crystal Tea Knits says, “She will forever wear the dead woman’s clothing.”
Angela & Stephanie: (laughing)
Jeanne: Woman’s clothes, so they’re at least that.
Stephanie: They were nice!
Angela: Designer suits, though, so it kind of works out; that’s not bad.
Stephanie: Yeah! Free designer suits.
Jeanne: (big smile) Yeah.
Angela: So, one of the comments I have is just a very random note. I love how much Eamon loves his wife.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: We don’t get to see that relationship, but we learn all about it, about how when he’s angry, she could totally just mellow him out and how everyone knew he would never hurt her; but at the same time, they believed this lie about him. I just thought the way he loved her was so sweet. I just wanted to throw that out there.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah. Yeah, right.
Angela: I just wanted to throw that out there. I mean, we don’t actually get to see this relationship, but we know all about it, and he’s very upfront with it. Again, some masculine traits where he’s going, “Oh, you know how I feel. I don’t need to say things.”
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: I mean, he was just saying, “I love her. I’m looking for her. I want to be with her.” He was just so upfront. And then everyone in the village knew how he felt, too. There was no doubt that he loved her from anybody.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah. Right, right.
Stephanie: (sad face)
Angela: (big smile responding to Susan Smith’s chat comment) I just saw this pop up, “it’s the airline’s fault.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (laughing)
Angela: I just saw that.
Jeanne: Yep.
Angela: That’s amazing, I know, and plus this is again a subsequent question with our killer here, Peg. This woman, she apparently can see Eamon. I don’t know how he never figured out that she could see him because if a ghost popped up next to me, even if I was pretending that I couldn’t see him and he popped up, that would scare me so much. I would jump out of my skin.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Right, right.
Angela: I’m surprised that she was able to keep the act up for twenty-five years; but I don’t know how she was able to banish the wife so that you can only get her lingering scent, and so you know she’s kind of on the same plane, but not really. I kind of want to know how Peg knew how to banish or semi-banish or keep the two apart. I have questions about this.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah. Yeah.
Jeanne: I have questions about how’s she going to find Eamon and I wish, even though I’m okay with the cliffhanger, I wish that there had been just a tiny little nugget to give Gethsemane the tiniest little bit of a hint about how to find him, so I wouldn’t be all angsty until I read the second book.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) Yes.
Angela: I am not okay with cliffhanger endings.
Jeanne: (big smile, laughs & throws her head back)
Angela: As soon as I was going, “What!?” I’m pretty sure it was, again, when I was reading this for the first time, I’m like, “It doesn’t have anything” because, again, this isn’t one of our culinary cozies. There’s only two pages after it and one of them is blank and the other one is just, you know.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement) Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: I was so upset. I’m going, “Where’s the rest of this?”
Stephanie: Most cozies don’t have cliffhangers.
Jeanne: That’s true. Good point.
Stephanie: What happened?
Angela: The ones that have cliffhangers have to do with like a secondary narrative of an overarching mystery throughout the series.
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: I just listened to an audible, The Merry Ghost Inn, which I loved; it’s such a cute series. It was just adorable. The main character’s looking for her missing mother, and so we don’t know about this missing mother in book one or book two and you don’t get like a little taste of it until book three. But that was okay because she was not the victim or whatever is going on in the main narrative.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: So, I was okay with them not knowing what happened with her. But with this, with him being gone, he’s the second most important character in this entire book.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: I was not okay with that. I was so upset. I’m going, “I need to know where he is. I need to know what’s happening.” I needed another chapter, and then that’s why I started book two and then we still don’t know. I gave up after, you know, listening to the audiobook for the first hour, I think, and then I was like, “I still don’t know where he is,” and I need to go to sleep now.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Jeanne: Yeah, that was by far the biggest cliffhanger I think I’ve ever read in any series, cozy mystery or not. And it was a little jarring to me, but I wanted time to savor the fact that they won the competition and that, you know, she was probably going to stay and “Oh, what does that mean?” That’s so fantastic, but then she just pow (punches a fist into the other hand) right with this, yeah.
Angela: (smiling with double fists up) Right.
Stephanie: At least we don’t have to wait a year for the next one, though, that’s one positive.
Jeanne: (points her finger) That’s true!
Angela: Oh, that’s the worst, when you have to wait for a book.
Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah!
Angela: That’s just, oh, that’s the worst. One of the benefits of reading a series, I mean, again, I will admit, so I looked it up. So, the fifth book in this series was published March 20, 2020. So, right now, there are five books in the series and I’m just going, “Okay, if book five ends on a cliffhanger…
Stephanie: (bursts out laughing)
Angela: and there’s no indication of a book six,
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Angela: I’m not really sure how I’m going to deal with that.
Jeanne: (throws both arms up in the air)
Angela: I’ll be okay up until book five, and then if she ends that on a cliffhanger, I will not be okay.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles, nodding) Yes. Yeah.
Angela: Yeah, I was just, yeah, that one was, I mean, again, I’m a romance person. My eyes just went to Eloise James, who has a new book, I just saw that. I was like, “Yes!” Yeah, you get the happily ever after; this one you did not get any, there was no happily ever after; it was very much you’re just waiting for it.
Jeanne: Can we talk about our disappointment in Billy? Do I have that name right?
Angela: Yeah.
Jeanne: I thought it was fantastic he wanted to memorialize it, and if Gethsemane wasn’t going to keep living in the house, he was going to make a museum out of it, which seemed lovely and appropriate; and then just out of nowhere, he goes for the money.
Angela & Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: And that was disappointing (frowns)
Stephanie: Yeah, that was pretty mean.
Angela: I like the face (referring to Jeanne’s frown)
Stephanie: (laughing) I know!
Angela: That’s how I feel, exactly, like a sad face emoji (frowns).
Stephanie & Jeanne: Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: I was more angry and frustrated with him, and I also think I posted this on the Twitter and, I don’t know, I can’t remember off the top of my head if anyone responded to this particular question, but I knew I wanted to put it out there. He called her at 4:00 AM and woke her up from like a dead sleep to get the paperwork, and I was really perplexed as to the immediacy of that calling at 4:00 AM.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: That seemed a little much to me; that also raised the question mark for me. Not only was he doing something sketchy, he was doing something sketchy in a very, very creepy way. I mean, you don’t need to call this woman at 4:00 AM and he knew it was 4:00 AM.
Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah.
Angela: It would’ve been one thing if he was just accidentally doing that, and he’d apologize like profusely saying, “I’m so sorry.” No, he knew what he was doing.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Right. Right.
Angela: And so now I just have no respect for Billy.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah! Yeah.
Jeanne: Again, pro for our protagonist who’s so smart and figured out the history of that hotel owner and used it to her advantage.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Angela: I love how, again, this writer, things come back around because he’s the one who told her at the very beginning of the book when he’s bringing her to the cottage, “Oh, yeah! We invite our ghosts in. Yes, we’re going to be hospitable to them.” And then he tries to say the exact opposite to our hotel mogul, his name’s Wayne, I believe. And then she says what he said at the beginning of the book and I’m going, “Yeah, you remember that dialogue?” that’s so great; kind of came back around again with the details. “Alexia Gordon, you’re very talented.”
Jeanne: Yeah, yeah, another point to playoff. Awesome.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Angela: Oh, my gosh, I was just going to say one of your points, and I just saw it as a note, I wanted them to have a sort of victory party or something. I wanted her to celebrate with the boys.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah. Right.
Angela: Like take them out to eat or just meet their families because that’s the other thing, too, with the boarding school, we don’t really get to see them interact with anyone else aside from their classmates.
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: Or even any other teachers aside from her and the math teacher; it’s just those two, apparently.
Stephanie: And those boys earned it; that was, they only had what six weeks?
Angela: (big smile) Yeah!
Jeanne: (nodding) Yes.
Stephanie: And they were apparently horrible at the start of the six weeks. I think that was so impressive.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: Yeah, I’m with you when you mention like everything was very abrupt at the ending. I mean, maybe in book two, again, I only listened to the first hour on audio and I think it’s an eight-hour audiobook. So, I only made a little bit of a fraction of a dent in it. But, yeah, I’m hoping that she’ll catch up with them and congratulate them again and maybe expand on it because they also worked really hard and that’s, again, why I wanted more of the day-to-day interactions of, “Were they staying late after school? Were they practicing in their spare time?”
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: How did they go from people thinking that they’re going to fail and not even place to winning the competition?
Stephanie: (nodding) Right.
Angela: Like, how did you go from there to there? (hand gestures moving up)
Jeanne: Uh-huh, yeah, they deserved accolades that they didn’t get.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah.
Angela: Oh, random note, I loved it when Gethsemane was in the pub, and she played the violin. She got to play a priceless violin,
Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: (amazed) Right!
Angela: but then she got to share her talent with the pub. I was very happy.
Jeanne: Yeah, yeah.
Stephanie: I loved that.
Jeanne: I think that got her a lot of props from the villagers, like, “Okay, she knows what she’s doing. Okay, we’ll follow this lady,” you know.
Stephanie: (big smile, nodding)
Angela: (big smile) “We’ll follow her.”
Stephanie: (laughing)
Angela: I mean, she also got to bond with O’Reilly, too. I mean he was there at the pub drinking,
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: and singing and everything else, and I thought that was really cute. Maybe, that was also a little indication of a spark.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: I think something might be there.
Stephanie: Yeah, he conveniently broke up with his girlfriend.
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: Yeah, the English teacher. He’s going from an English teacher to a Music teacher. I just love how we randomly find out he has a cat. I mean, I was like, “Oh, we can turn this into an animal cozy in the future.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing) Yes, right! Right.
Angela: Apparently, I just hold onto that, “Every cozy has to have an animal somehow.” But he even adopted the cat after he solved his first case.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: For some reason, even the detail of how he got the cat made me happy.
Stephanie: (smiling)
Jeanne: I know, I know! Heartfelt.
Angela: So, at the very end, this is one of the other reasons why I think I immediately went into book two, so Peggy sort of evades the police and commits suicide at the end, correct?
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: Our killer kind of, I was expecting, I thought maybe in book two it was like, “Ha, ha, I pretended, I’m back now!” And, again, I haven’t gotten that far, but I was kind of surprised that usually doesn’t happen with cozy mysteries.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: Usually, justice is served where they go to prison and we usually don’t see justice be served, but we see them get into the cop car and get driven away. We don’t see the trial, usually, but we at least know that the person’s in custody and that didn’t happen this time around. And I was so surprised about that, which is again why I’m like, “This is a darker cozy mystery.”
Stephanie: Yeah.
Jeanne: Yeah, I wondered how much of that is just based on the style of this author or if it’s more of an international thing; like, is that a UK-Irish?
Angela: It reminded me of an Agatha Christie sort of thing.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Angela: I mean, I don’t want to spoil this, but And Then There Were None, you can tell by the title how many are left at the end of the book.
Stephanie: (laughing)
Jeanne: Right.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles) Yeah, yeah.
Angela: And Then There Were None, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I kind of got that vibe because I was not expecting that. I mean, she, yeah, I wasn’t sure at first if it was supposed to be symmetry because she jumped off the cliff where she killed Orla or what. But I was very, very surprised by that; that we didn’t have the cops get our killer. For some reason that really struck me.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: I have an entire page dedicated to that just one note (holds up paper).
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Stephanie: Yeah, it reminded me of A Dark and Stormy Murder by Julia Buckley.
Angela: (nods in agreement) That’s a great book.
Stephanie: That’s one kind of like right on the line of a cozy because it’s darker and this one feels the same way.
Jeanne: Ah! Yes.
Angela: She had the same thing though, too, where she has all the cozy elements in the book, but at the same time it does have a little bit of a darker vibe. You’re going, “Oh, we have the dogs” and then something dark happens, and then we’re talking about coffee, and then your kind of going, “Wait a second, a gray area.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Angela: So, yeah, maybe these two [books] kind of need to be next to each other on the shelf.
Stephanie: Yeah, I enjoyed it.
Angela: I did, too. I was really happy with this book; it was just the cliffhanger, that is where I got frustrated. Maybe my romance novels have spoiled me rotten where I get to have my everything tied up in a nice pretty bow. But, yeah, that was my biggest complaint was the cliffhanger. But, yeah, at the same time, though, when you want more of a story that shows that it was a good story. So, that’s why I’m kind of hesitating to say like, “Oh, it ruined it,” because it didn’t. It just meant I want more.
Stephanie: Yeah, and I think I just wasn’t expecting it. Like, if I’m reading a fantasy or something, I know there’s probably going to be a cliffhanger. But in a cozy, it usually doesn’t happen, so it was jarring.
Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: Right, different standards. With fantasies, again, you’ll be going, my favorite with fantasies is when you only have ten pages left and there’s so much more story to go,
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) Yeah.
Angela: and you’re going, “This is not going to be good,” but you know that!
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Angela: When you see the last ten pages and you’re like, “Yeah, no,” you kind of realize right before the end, where you kind of prepare yourself. I didn’t prepare myself for this one.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Stephanie: Yes.
Angela: I love how you guys know exactly what I’m talking about. Usually, I mean, again, readers get readers. If I said that to someone who was not a reader, they’d be going, “Huh? What? No?”
Jeanne: We get you.
Stephanie: Well, and even with the audiobook, it was like, “Wait, there’s no more left?” because I wasn’t paying attention, because you can’t physically see it, so it just ended.
Jeanne: (nods in agreement) Ah, right.
Stephanie: (shakes her head)
Angela: Yep, nope, I mean, I want more information with all of these characters. I need to know what happens next. I’m pretty sure I’m going to fall into this series and just be, again, I’m hoping, you know, once I get acclimated to the new narrator for the second audiobook, maybe, hopefully, she’s the same for book three, four, and five or maybe I’ll just end up reading them like with my e-reader or something. But I’m hoping they keep the same one for, you know, continuity’s sake. But, yeah, I’m definitely in the series now, I need information, I can’t just cliffhanger, this is not how I work as a reader or as a human. I need more information.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Jeanne: (responds to Renee’s chat comment) Renee has a good point about the really cute titles.
Stephanie: Yes.
Jeanne: Murder in G Major and Death in D Minor, it’s so good. I’m terrible at puns, and I’m always just amazed at how great some of these titles are for these cozy mysteries, and this was no exception.
Angela & Stephanie: (nodding)
Stephanie: Yeah, and how many they come up with.
Jeanne: Yes! Yes.
Angela: I’ve got to give her credit with including the musical components in the title because it is such a musical cozy and that is so rare. Again, I can find my baking cozies all over the place, but I don’t really know too many musical cozy mysteries and random aside with the cover, I kind of love how it’s a green violin, she’s in Ireland; green, green violin on the cover.
Jeanne: (big smile) Yes, yeah.
Angela: For some reason. I just loved that. I just think everything about this is just perfect.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah.
Angela: (responds to Victoria Hamel’s chat comment “Angela they are pretty short – you can read them by next week – get reading!”) Hey! I can read them by next week, can read everything; will give you guys a summation very soon.
Stephanie: (big smile &laughing)
Jeanne: (responds to Crystal Tea Knits’s chat comment) Crystal had a good point about how it was neat that everyone in the village was so into classical music, but you don’t necessarily get a lot, especially around like a boarding school or a small town like that; at least, in the United States. I mean, it’s like football, or not that there’s anything wrong with football, but it was neat to have something different that kind of the village revolved around.
Angela & Stephanie: (nodding)
Angela: I did like it, when she says, “Soccer” and he’s going, “Football” – “No,” he has to correct it, and had that, what was it, that Orla liked Cricket, and he liked Football. It was cute how they didn’t mention that. But, yeah, this school, for some reason, music was their thing and, again, that made me so happy. My little reading heart was going, “This is not typical.” You guys have an orchestra, even just having an orchestra in the school it was kind of new. I don’t know if any cozy mystery musicals or musical cozy mysteries have orchestras in their high schools; that just seems like it was such a different detail than a lot of other books would have.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah. Uh-huh.
Angela: (responds to Vonnie Jeffers’s chat comment) Hey, thank you! They have the same narrator. I appreciate you, Vonnie! I was worried about that. I mean, I really love the first narrator. She was spectacular. I don’t know what the backstory was with getting the new one for book two and, again, I listened to the first hour. Gethsemane is, apparently, originally from Virginia, so she has that sort of slow Southern drawl, whereas with the first one you get the Irish accent, and so it is very, very different; it was kind of jarring almost, so definitely going to have to take a day and then get ready for book two and go back.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (both smiling) Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: (responds to Victoria Hamel’s chat comment) A posh private school, yes, I kind of want to know, “Were they wearing their uniforms? Were they dressed with their little blazers?” I’m kind of picturing them like that in my head.
Stephanie: That’s how I pictured them, being proper.
Angela: They’re also on the verge, I actually wrote down a little money sign; so, I don’t want to mispronounce this name, Dan Lev. I keep thinking of the guy from Schitt’s Creek, Dan Levy. Dan Levy with the donation, they’re going to get their own sort of stadium-esque thing going; he’s going to have private rooms designed so they’re soundproofed. I mean this music program is going to be top-notch by the end of the series, so I’m kind curious about that, too. I’m not really sure how much input Gethsemane’s going to have, but I’m really curious to see where those donations and the musical elements kind of progress to.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Jeanne: Same.
Stephanie: So, what was your overall star rating if you give star ratings.
Angela: Jeanne, what was yours?
Jeanne: You know, I’m going to go four, a solid four.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: I’m pretty harsh on books in general, so a solid four I think is pretty good; just with those few little details that I’m like (pauses to think) but it was buoyed by the fact that this author is so intelligent, and she wrote all of her characters so intelligently and it had so much cozy yumminess. I’m at a solid four. What about you, Stephanie?
Stephanie: The same, a solid four. I really, really enjoyed it.
Jeanne: Yep.
Angela: I’m kind of with you guys where I’m kind of teeter-tottering between, I almost want to be that person. I really want to be like that fraction reader. I mean, sometimes I really want to be like 4.25, 4.75. I feel like that person, because I’m kind of thinking 4.5 for me in a way because, again, the cliffhanger ending was just so startling to me. I want more, which is a good sign, but very bad that I kind of wanted to go throw the book against the wall. My reaction was anger, it wasn’t, “Wait a second!” I was upset with the cliffhanger, that was not for me, so that kind of left me a little, 4.5, a little deduction. So, that was my biggest complaint with that. But, yeah, I thought she was just so talented having those details come up at the beginning and then come back around at the end. She is a good writer. She is very talented.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: I can see why this book was nominated for so many awards.
Jeanne: Right.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Jeanne: (responds to Vonnie Jeffers’s chat comment) Vonnie agrees four stars (thumbs up).
Stephanie: (reading chat comments) Yeah, it seems like almost everyone really liked it.
Angela: I can show the star ratings.
Jeanne: Nice.
Stephanie: Yay.
Angela: I hope the other books in the series are at the same level. I mean, again, I’m very impressed with the fact that this is the first book in the series, too, because sometimes they’ll progress, you know, they’ll get better as the series goes on. But to start out on such a high note, now, my expectations for book two are really high, so, “You’ve got to live up to book one now,” the pressure is on.
Jeanne: (nodding) Uh-huh.
Stephanie: Yes.
Angela: She does that to herself by being so talented.
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: So, I’m kind of curious where that’s going to go; to where, oh, hopefully, book two, book three, and the rest of them, are the same caliber. I have faith in her though.
Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: Yeah!
Angela: Because she seems like she could do it.
Jeanne: I believe that she will, even though I haven’t read them yet, but it’s a feeling.
Stephanie: We have faith.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I also love the main character, so I’m rooting for her, too.
Stephanie: Yes.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I’m trying to see what other little notes I had. I’m kind of curious what’s going to happen with the sister who’s poisoning people because now she doesn’t have her lookout. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Nuala in the following books, but I think that’s all I had. Did you guys have any other thoughts, comments, questions?
Jeanne: I’ve been pretty pushy about my thoughts, so I think.
Angela & Stephanie: (burst out laughing)
Jeanne: (big smile)
Stephanie: We covered everything I wanted to talk about.
Angela: I’m looking down at my little diagram. I will just say, I was very surprised with the first investigation; your heart has to sort of go out to Eamon. I always have to pause, to think, “This is how you pronounce his name.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughs) Yes. Yes.
Angela: Your heart has to go out to him because there’s a week in-between Orla being pushed over the cliff and him being poisoned. So, he has an entire week of grief, and the police force really didn’t help him. They sort of just took the word of a guy who hated him of, “Yeah, I saw his car.” Didn’t really do any sort of investigation, and even upon his suicide, nobody looked any further than, “Oh, he must have been grief-stricken.”
So, I felt terribly for him, and I thought really poorly of Jimmy Hurley there. Their police force, I’m kind of curious, too, for the following books because there seemed to be a lot of speculation that they were corrupt aside from our inspector with the cold cases, O’Reilly, who’s new by the way, who hasn’t been in town that long; there seems to be a questionable backstory with the cops in that town. So, as cute as the small-town life is, the police force sort of has left me with a giant question mark.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Jeanne: Agree. (responds to Victoria Hamel’s chat comment) Victoria has a really interesting point here; she was not such a fan of how many women are portrayed as crazy or unstable. I hadn’t, I mean, I noticed that, but it didn’t ring a bell. That’s such an interesting point, Victoria.
Stephanie: Yeah, that’s a good point.
Angela: That’s true. You kind of got me thinking of the whole, “She’s not like other girls” sort of thing where you wanted the protagonist to be the one that they focus on sort of situation. But there weren’t that many female characters in the book to start with. I did like, oh, my gosh, I don’t want to mispronounce her name. The friend, she’s with Teague, Aoife.
Jeanne: Aoife (pronounced E-fa).
Angela: Aoife, she was really cute. But I mean, again, she’s having an affair. She’s a doctor! She’s running the pharmacy! She’s capable. I mean, she has a kind heart, but there was a little something going on where you’re not like, “Oh, you’re not, you know, not completely upfront,” you know, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.
But aside from her, yeah, the other women, we have, I’m looking at the list. Yeah, we have Nuala who was in her own little area and there weren’t any women on the force either. For a second, I thought DI Kildare was going to be a woman, but then it was Donny; it was a man. I was kind of curious about that, too, but Orla seemed awesome. I mean, everyone, except for our killer, who was psychotic, everyone else seemed to love her, so she was a positive representation.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Jeanne: A lot of women were victims in the sense that they died. And, so, maybe in book two and three and four and five we’ll get more female characters in there (shows fingers crossed).
Angela: My dog just went under the bed. He’s hiding somewhere. He’s so tiny. I tried to keep him from going under the bed by putting things in front of it so he can’t, but I just saw something move forward. I’m going, “He’s in there,” that’s great.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (burst out laughing)
Angela: But, yeah, there weren’t that many female characters. I was expecting not a confrontation, but I was expecting our leading lady to run into the literature professor who dumped the inspector, but we never see her again after the breakup.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: And even then, she was a little bit, she wasn’t the most understanding of women. She wasn’t portrayed very well during that breakup. So, yeah, you have a very fair point, but I loved our leading lady, though, she was a good female representation; it was just everyone else.
Jeanne: She was.
Angela: Oh, so this is interesting (displays Colleen C’s chat comment, “I agree Victoria. Actually was bothered by the way mental illness was treated in the last half of the book. It seemed like it was dealt with flippantly OR not dealt with at all.”)
Jeanne: Yeah.
Stephanie: Yeah, I agree with that.
Angela: (nods in agreement)
Jeanne: I feel like Eamon’s character tried to address that a little bit by saying, “You know, even I went there one time and, you know, it was, everybody needs it sometimes,” but I agree. I don’t think it was enough.
Angela: Yeah, I kind of like the fact that Eamon there mentioned, “No, I was tired. I needed to recuperate. I went there. I didn’t mention it because it didn’t need to be mentioned.” And he owned it, and I appreciated the fact that he stood up for himself and he didn’t back down of, “Oh, yeah, I should have told you.” I mean, he was like, “No, I took care of myself. I did the self-love self-care.”
Stephanie: (nodding)
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: I think the bad part was how they didn’t know the difference between someone who was having mental health issues and someone who needed to be taken in by the police.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: Because they didn’t seem to know what to do with Nuala, where she needed to have, she needed help in a mental sense, but they didn’t need to bring her to the police station, “You should have brought her to the hospital, not to the cops.”
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) Yes.
Jeanne: Right.
Angela: They didn’t seem to know how to actually deal with what she was doing, and why she was doing it. I think that was probably the biggest issue, as my dog goes behind the bed now; all of a sudden, I hear him doing things, and I’m like, “What’s going on?”
I think that was really a problem for me, but maybe that’s a small town where they didn’t have enough people on staff. They were, you know, they needed more education in regards to, “This is now the world we live in; be nicer, be kinder,” but I understand why you’re saying that. I also felt badly that the actual mental health institution was closed.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Angela: It seems like a town that would’ve needed, I mean, people in town were going there. I’m not really sure why it closed, because, clearly, there were people who needed it and they also just abandoned it. This place was literally left with the folders like someone just walked out of there. I have so many questions about that.
Jeanne: Yeah, yeah.
Stephanie: Like, prime for a movie setting.
Jeanne: Exactly! And that does happen! I mean, that, or at least it used to happen, and that’s why we have so many caricatures of that because the stereotypes are there.
Angela & Stephanie: (nodding) Uh-huh. Yeah.
Jeanne: But, yeah, I wondered if Alexia Gordon was not addressing it as much because it’s in a different country and they do things differently or it’s in a small area where they didn’t really have access to a lot of the resources that people needed or if that was just the town and that’s how she wrote it. I don’t know.
Angela: Oh, no, I’m kind of hoping Nuala, I want her to get the help she needs because, again, the priest saying, “No, no, no, don’t press charges.” At least if that was brought to attention, they’d be able to say, “Okay, why are you doing this? Let’s talk about this. Let’s get you the help you need.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding)
Angela: Whereas brushing it under the rug of, “Oh, if we don’t talk about it, it’s fine.” That’s not the healthy approach to take, so I’m hoping in subsequent books, she’s getting therapy, someone’s taking care of her. I would like to see that in the rest of the series.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah.
(Max barks)
Jeanne: (big smile) So would Max!
Stephanie: (big smile & laughing) Max would too.
Angela: Oh, right on cue.
Jeanne: (laughing) Right.
Angela: He’s behind the bed, too. I can’t even see him because I’ve got the big fan in the way; he’s just somewhere over there.
Stephanie: He has a strong opinion.
Jeanne: Yes.
Angela: He has a very big personality with strong opinions.
Stephanie: (laughing)
Jeanne: He steals the show and he’s not even on screen, I love it.
Stephanie: (big smile, nodding)
Angela: It’s so funny. He’s five pounds, but he has such a big personality. I mean, he really does. He also can communicate very well. Max says, “That’s right.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (smiling)
Angela: I’m kind of curious if there are any other thoughts or questions. Hopefully, Max will pop his head out before the evening is over, (holds up a paperback copy) but I will just mention our next book is Color Me Murder (by Krista Davis).
Stephanie: (smiles & claps)
Angela: So, this is our book for next month. I haven’t read it yet, but I printed out the cover because I want to color it in. I am obsessed with that. I think this is such a cute cover where it’s an actual adult coloring book page.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Angela: I think that it’s such a cute idea. So, if you haven’t already gotten this book, please add it to your TBR. I don’t think it’s available in Audible, but there is an audiobook available. So, there are all the different ways to get it, all the different outlets where it’s available: Barnes and Noble, Amazon. I looked them all up with the links. They’re all on the Twitter page, and I don’t want to misspeak, so I’m going to open up the Twitter. So, what I’m doing is, I really love the fact that we were able to have our next four reads all planned out. I don’t know how y’all felt, but that was just brilliant for me.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah.
Angela: I was able to figure out, “Okay, this is what we need to do here” and I was able to make the graphics. I was able to get everything in order in regards to giving you guys the links and being able to tell you, “Hey, this is what’s going on” and I think it was really nice for the people who do plan out their reads, and so people were able to add them to their reading challenges and figure out what was going on in regards to, “Okay, I can add this to my Library Wishlist and get it in time.” I thought that was wonderful for a lot of people, so I’m trying to do that again.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nod in agreement)
Angela: And, right now, Hey! (big smile, throws both arms up)102 votes! we were at 98 before we went live. That is so exciting, I’m like, “Yeah! 102 votes!”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Angela: That’s great. So, right now, I am posting the poll for the May read and then I left that up for an entire week and then I’ll do the same thing for the June, July, and, hopefully, August. Hopefully, we can do the next four as well. And every single book, it was the ones that you guys had recommended, because I’ve been asking you guys probably since we’ve had our four reads, like, “Hey, start thinking about the books you’re interested in” and I’ve been marking them. I have an entire binder. I have another notebook and everything else just dedicated to keep track of your book. I’m not kidding. I do my research, and what I did was I grouped them by theme. So, right now, it is a bookish cozy theme. So, For Whom the Book Tolls (by Laura Gail Black), The Broken Spine (by Dorothy St. James), On Borrowed Crime (by Kate Young), and Little Bookshop of Murder (by Maggie Blackburn). So, right now, we have the Little Bookshop of Murder winning at 35% but On Borrowed Crime is at 28% so it could come back around if you guys keep voting. So, you have 24 hours left to vote for that one, and then as soon as that one’s done, I’ll keep posting the next theme. So, your June read will, hopefully, be voted on. So, then, hopefully, by the time we have our April Livestream, we will have our next four reads all planned out after this lovely (holds up a paperback copy of Color Me Murder). So, that is the goal, that is the plan. I am hoping that works.
Stephanie: (smiling)
Jeanne: Sounds great!
Angela: I’m so excited to see what wins, too, because again it took me a little while to figure out how to keep track of, this is why there’s a binder, how to keep track of people’s recommendations, was because some people would DM them on Instagram; some people would mention them in DM’s on Twitter; some people would answer Twitter questions; some people would answer Instagram questions; some people would send it in an email or they’d respond to my Newsletter with an email. And, so, that was when the binder happened. So, that was when the, “Hey, we’re going to put these into themes.” So, the next couple of, I’m like, “Do I spoil the themes? Do I tell you what the themes are?” But every single book, you guys recommended. I lost track of who recommended what (Stephanie & Jeanne laugh), but someone did recommend them, I promise.
Stephanie: I love how close all the polls are, too.
Angela: Yes!
Stephanie: Which is very nice, it makes me excited to read any of them.
Jeanne: (nods in agreement) Uh-huh.
Angela: I am always so excited when I see them being that close because it just shows that everyone’s on the same page, too, that everyone has similar interests, and everyone is just also reading.
Stephanie: (smiles and nods in agreement) Yes!
Angela: Reading the cozies; they’re interested, and they’re engaged. That just makes me so happy. I mean, whenever I see the numbers, again, as soon as I saw 102, I’m pretty sure my face lit up like a Christmas tree. I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this is incredible!” Seeing the participation is just the best! It makes me so happy; it really does.
(reading chat comments) Oh, you guys are so cute.
(responds to Paperpack Stash’s chat comment “Just ordered a copy of Color Me Murder. First time with that author as well”) Hey, you just ordered your copy. Oh! Yay! This one! (holds up a paperback copy of Color Me Murder).
Stephanie: Did you say it was Krista Davis?
Angela: Yes. I’m pretty sure, what is she, The Domestic Diva?
Stephanie: Yes.
Jeanne: Yes, The Diva Series. I love that series.
Stephanie: I love that series.
Angela: We read the first book for that one.
Jeanne: That’s how I got into it, and then I read the whole series, and she has another one coming out in May, and I’m waiting.
Angela: Because she’s with Kensington now, I’m pretty sure, too, right? I think she transcended to a different publisher as I’m looking over there, because I’m pretty sure (looks down at Max) “Hi, he’s back!” Oh, my gosh, now he has a bone he’s trying to bury; this is going to be interesting.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (burst out laughing)
Jeanne: (responds to Lady Gizmo’s chat comment “Thank You Stephanie & Jeanne for co-hosting tonight!”) Thanks, Lady Gizmo, that’s so sweet.
Angela: Aww, yes, you guys are so sweet for joining and being here and saying, “Yes.” I was so happy that you guys answered the Google Interest Form because I always have that moment like, “Who might be interested?” Again, now that we have a Form, I can figure out like, “This is great.” But before I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I don’t want to put someone on the spot.” I don’t want to be like, “Hey, you know, if someone’s shy or not ready.” As soon as I saw your names, I’m going (throws arms up in the air) “I know them! They’re great! They’re awesome!”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Angela: “I love their comments! They’re always so engaged and so positive!”
Stephanie: (puts hands together to form a heart)
Angela: As soon as I saw the names I’m like (throws arms up in the air) “Yes, this is the best!”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Angela: I was so excited because you guys also were like, “Yeah, we’ll do this.” I think Stephanie you were like, “I’ll do any of the months, I’d love to participate.” I was like, “Oh, my gosh, she is so excited about cozies!”
Stephanie: Yes! Anytime! All the cozies, all the same.
Angela: It was so cute and Jeanne’s adorable, too. I’m like, “You guys are just adorable, so sweet, I just want to keep you guys.” Again, I’ve seen your usernames all over the place and actually getting to talk to you is just, it’s so great, it makes me so happy. I’m so happy you guys joined tonight. I was so excited to be able to put your little faces in the thumbnail.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (burst out laughing)
Angela: I don’t know, if you guys have seen it, I was able to go take their little photos.
Jeanne: (big smile, nodding) I saw!
Angela: So cute.
Jeanne: Yeah, my thumbnail. I’m like, “Dang, that’s an old photo.” My hair was like this short (raises hand to side of her face).
Stephanie: (laughing)
Angela: I think I took your user profile picture. Again, benefit of planning, able to make the thumbnails in advance. I’m so happy.
Stephanie: Nice.
Jeanne: (smiles & gives a thumbs up) Go you!
Stephanie: (smiling, points to her head)
Angela: You guys are so sweet. I was so happy when you not only filled out the Google Form and then when I actually asked you, you said, “Yes.” It wasn’t one of those, “Hey, I’m going to put my hand up in the air.” (pulls her hand down) “No, don’t call on me.”
Stephanie: I know, I had a little fan-girl moment like, “Yes!”
Jeanne: Totally, Stephanie! And I don’t know about you guys, but I really love the three (points to screen). I don’t know how many you’ve done with three. I missed a couple of months, but usually it’s two, and it’s so fun with three! (claps)
Angela: Again, I never would’ve put someone on the spot where I know things come up. If someone ever says, backs out from the three, I’m like, “No, no, no, I understand, take care of.” I remember one time someone had a loss in the family and were saying, “Oh, no, no, we’re going to be going” and they were apologizing to me. I’m like, “No, no, no, go take care of yourself. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (nodding) Yeah, yeah.
Angela: “Go take care of yourself. I’m thinking of you, wishing you well.” And, so, again, I’m really happy we were able to do the three of us, because I haven’t had a livestream with either of you, so this is new across the board. And then next month I’m pretty sure, I didn’t realize this until after I was like, “We have Vonnie and Victoria, so it’s going to be V and V, so it’s another three people.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles and claps) Awesome!
Jeanne: Sounds like it’ll be great!
Angela: It was so funny when I saw that, I was like, “Hey, wait a second, that’s going to make things easy or hard. We’ll see how this goes.”
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing)
Angela: Hopefully, this isn’t a tongue twister at some point. At least the author’s name doesn’t have a V in it.
(reading chat comments) Aww, you guys are so sweet. Thank You so much for joining.
Again, I’m starting to lose the voice because we’ve been talking for a while, but if you guys have any final questions, comments, now is the time to post them and, also, get your comments in because the Giveaway is going to be happening for a Fresh Brewed Murder (by Emmeline Duncan) and Marta being the awesome author that she is has the audiobook.
I’m trying to think if I had any other announcements. I posted an egg. I love how I say egg now. I’m like the egg TV or like the little Instagram highlight. I mentioned that Astoria Wright is organizing a cozy mystery romance-themed conference that is happening, I believe, April 11. I wrote it down and then I put the notebook on the floor and the dog is now on top of it so I can’t look at it. She’s doing that, and Malice Domestic is also happening and that’s a virtual conference. I signed up myself for that one and then Astoria’s conference is happening next month and there’s a cozy mystery gift basket going to be happening,
Stephanie & Jeanne: (express amazement)
Angela: and I put inside one of the mugs and candy and all sorts of other coziness and goodness. There’s also going to be some more sleuther-vinyl giveaways; and for those, I also put in extra cozy swag. Some people are so cute; they post photos of what they get in the mail, and that makes me so happy! I post, I put in the bookmark, the vinyl-sleuther sticker. We have Purrlock Holmes and there’s a vinyl sticker of her, our little Sherlock-sleuther cat, which is so cute. I love the mascot that we have.
Jeanne: (nodding) Yes.
Stephanie: (big smile) I do, too!
Angela: So, I’ll be doing some more of those flash giveaways as well. So, there are lots of things going on, and to be on the lookout for. So, please make sure you check your Instagram and Twitters because if you want to win, again, I also pick like five people at a time because I can’t stand to not give the love to you guys.
Jeanne: You’re so generous, by the way.
Stephanie: (nods in agreement) You are.
Jeanne: You are amazing, keeping up with this. This is why you’ve built such a following, Angela, because you are incredible at this; hosting things and making sure people feel loved. So, kudos, my friend!
Stephanie: (nods in agreement)
Angela: Oh, Thank You. I’m just so appreciative of everybody: it was so sweet because I was really kind of out of it last month and I’ve been kind of picking myself back up, responding to the DMs, and everything else. I posted, “This has been a really rough day.” There was a dissertation-related issue, and I got all these DM’s and people wishing me well and it just picked me right up; it literally changed my entire disposition. I went from like crying about this issue, as I’m getting emotional talking about how you guys make me happy, I was like, “You guys sent all these well wishes.” I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, this is really the best crew in the world!” It really is my absolute honor and pleasure to celebrate cozy mysteries with everybody.
I’m so honored that you take the time to talk to me, like, you guys sitting here taking the time out of your day to co-host, I mean, “Hello, I love you guys!” Like, this is amazing, you don’t have to do this, you don’t have to be here, and the fact that you are, it just means the absolute world to me. So, for me, it’s like, “Yeah, this is the least I can do. I wish I could do more. I, specifically, when I was having the bad day, I went to the Cricket; like, that was my Christmas present. I went to the Cricket and I’m like, “What can I do to make myself feel better? What can I do?” And I was like, “Oh, I want to do something for my Cozy Mystery Book Club, my family. Let me do the vinyl-sleuther stickers.” And, so, that’s what I did; focusing on that was what got me out of my funk, and getting your well wishes was just so sweet, and it brightened and changed everything! So, you guys really do make my life better. You do! So, it’s my absolute honor and pleasure. If I can do more giveaways, I will.
Stephanie: Yeah, you’ve built a really awesome community, for sure.
Jeanne: (nods in agreement)
Angela: You guys are the community, though. You guys are just so sweet and amazing and it’s just you participate, you comment, and your comments are thoughtful and they’re sweet and they’re kind, and you engage with the books. It’s so easy to talk with y’all and be kind to y’all; you make it so easy to just enjoy this community, you really do. I mean, we had like, at one point, we had like 35 people watching. I mean, that is incredible; it really is. It’s my absolute honor to be a part of this. I’m just so privileged; it really is, as I get emotional. I’m thankful to you guys, too! You comment! You have been a part of this for a very long time. I’ve been seeing your usernames for I don’t even know how long. I’m pretty sure, Stephanie, you’ve been here from probably like the beginning. I’m pretty sure.
Stephanie: Close to, yeah, yeah.
Angela: And, Jeannie, you’ve been across platforms, like, I’ve been seeing you; you were, I think, you were actually a part of the first 12 Days of Cozies.
Jeanne: Maybe, I mean, I have to tell you this group really helped me through the quarantine and the pandemic; like, seriously buoyed what was a really scary and tumultuous thing not knowing what was going on, and this Cozy Mystery Book Club really kind of gave me something to focus on that wasn’t scary.
Stephanie: (nodding) Yeah, something to look forward to.
Angela: Aww, (moves arms forward) virtual hugs.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (big smiles & laughing) Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: I want to virtually hug you. I think cozy mysteries themselves, too, right? They lend themselves perfectly and beautifully; they’re upbeat, you got the characters that you love aside from a cliffhanger here.
Stephanie & Jeanne: (laughing) Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: Most of the time they end with the little bow tied up where you get to enjoy it. I’m so happy that I was able to brighten your day because you guys brighten mine, too.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Angela: I think that’s kind of just like that’s true for both of us where I’m like, “Yes, you guys.”
(responds to Victoria Hamel’s chat comment “Yes, it’s true the cozy club connection”)
I just love that “cozy club,” oh, my gosh, “cozy club connection.” There we go, a little tongue twister.
Stephanie: (laughing & claps)
Jeanne: Yes.
Angela: You guys are the best. I’m so honored. I’m so happy we were able to do this tonight and I’m so thankful that people were able to join us. I mean, again, you guys are taking time out of your lives to come chat cozies with us; you guys are awesome, and I want to give you guys all the virtual shoutouts and hugs, too!
Thank You for being here and talking about this book and, hopefully, you guys will also like this book next month (holds up Color Me Murder by Krista Davis). So far, I’ve heard really good things, and I’m really hoping everyone else enjoys it as well. So far, only a handful of people have said they’ve started it. I know a lot of people have said they’ve started the next book in this series though (holds up Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon). So, I’m probably going to have to check-in at some point. But next up Color Me Murder by Krista Davis. So, that is happening.
Do you have any final thoughts or comments for the night before you say goodbye?
Jeanne: (puts hands together to form a heart) Super love, much fun! Loved every minute of it.
Stephanie: (big smile, also puts hands together to form a heart)
Angela: I am so appreciative of you guys for joining and, again, I’m going to be sharing all of their social media links because they’re amazing. And you guys are just so sweet and incredible and I’m so happy that you were able to join me tonight and you are welcome back anytime. I’m just very appreciative so I’m going to be sharing all of their links. Please follow them across the board because, again, they brighten my day and I’m sure they’ll brighten yours.
And I am going to be posting more giveaways, more information, more things are happening. Next month there are going to be three books courtesy of Kate Young, who is one of my favorite cozy mystery authors; she does baking cozies or cooking cozies, technically speaking.
Stephanie: (smiles & claps)
Angela: So, there are going to be more cozy mystery giveaways happening next month, too, so be on the lookout for those. Aside from that, I think that is everything, and you guys are amazing. I love everybody! You guys are great!
Stephanie & Jeanne: (happy, big smiles)
Angela: So, I’m going to be hitting End Broadcast. Have a nice night, guys!
Stephanie & Jeanne: (waves goodbye)
Angela Maria Hart: @writerahart
Stephanie Richards: @msrichardsreads
Jeanne Epstein: @jeannewrites
