A Classic Case of Murder (Literary Dining Mystery 3), by Daryl Wood Gerber

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A Classic Case of Murder, by Daryl Wood Gerber, is the third installment in her Literary Dining Mystery series.  Each book is based on a different classic novel. This one is based on one of my favorites, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

The series is set in the charming small town of Bramblewood, North Carolina. Personal chef and caterer, Allie Catt, combines her loves of food and fiction by hosting literary dining parties. In A Classic Case of Murder, her next event is taking place at the Amber Lantern, an inn recently opened by her best friend, Noeline. When a prized first edition of A Christmas Carol goes missing and someone is murdered, it isn't turning out to be a happy Christmas after all. With the prime suspect being a friend of Allie's and her best friend's business at risk, she puts on her sleuthing cap and sets out to solve this murder mystery.

I really loved the vibe of this book. The atmosphere of the era in which A Christmas Carol was written was perfectly captured. The vivid descriptions gave me all the warm, classic Christmas feels and awakened my senses.

Some of the characters' names and their personalities were reminiscent of those in A Christmas Carol. This added a nice touch, especially for fans of the original story. There were a lot of suspects to keep track of, but each had distinct names and personalities. It was also a delight to be reunited with the main recurring characters in the series. I appreciated a character list with brief descriptions of who they all were at the beginning of the book, which I sometimes referred to while reading.

Allie is a very likeable amateur sleuth. She cares about her loved ones and wants justice to be served. She's intelligent, friendly, and works well with her detective boyfriend. I also appreciate her focus on mental health. Our cozy mystery amateur sleuths experience a lot of trauma. It's refreshing to see someone who meets with a therapist even though she's overall happy with where she's at in life right now.

Darcy, the cat, appears throughout this series. I hope at some point Darcy becomes involved in solving a mystery, even if it's just one scene, but for now he's a purrfect cozy companion.

The setting had a classic cozy mystery feel to it. The inn was warm and quaint. It's a place I would love to stay for a little getaway, especially at Christmastime.  As someone who is physically disabled, I appreciated the mentions of the inn having an elevator, although in one scene there were stairs described at the front entrance.  I wasn't sure how I'd be able to get up those stairs. It didn't take away from my overall enjoyment of the story, but I like to imagine myself in the setting when I read a cozy. It's difficult to do that if the buildings are not accessible.

The mystery was solid. Allie's boyfriend is the detective and I loved how they informally worked together on this case. There were twists and turns, and plenty of suspects to keep me guessing until the end. Ultimately, I did not identify the whodunnit. 

Besides the character list, there are a few other, what I call, extras, in this book. Each chapter begins with a quote from A Christmas Carol. Throughout A Classic Case of Murder, there are mentions of other books. I assure you, my TBR list has grown as a result of reading this book. If you enjoy recipes in cozies, you'll be glad to know there are several delicious-sounding ones at the end.

If you love book-themed mysteries, delicious food, and Christmas cozies, I highly recommend A Classic Case of Murder, by Daryl Wood Gerber. To see the character development, you can start from the beginning of the series with Murder on the Page. However, enough information is given without spoilers in A Classic Case of Murder that it can easily be read as a standalone. The digital format has already been released. The hardcover edition is set to be released on November 24, 2026.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for providing me with an eARC of this book.

Golden Gratitude - B is for Book

B is for Book. Of course I'm grateful for all the books I enjoy reading, but specifically, I recently selected a "can't sleep" book. Sometimes I wake up in the very early morning hours after sleeping for five to six hours. I really need at least seven hours to feel my best, but I struggle to fall back to sleep. I end up tossing and turning until I finally fall back to sleep two hours later.

I'm tired of the cycle, so I decided to find a physical book (no screens allowed) that I can read until I'm relaxed enough to fall back to sleep. This is a book I enjoy and one that is calming. The first book I've selected is And Then There Was You, by Nancy Naigle. It's women's fiction and romance, with a side of mystery. I recently won it in a giveway - a signed copy at that! I started this on Saturday morning and I'm loving it! It's perfect timing, too, as it's set during sweater weather season. It really helped. I read for 30 minutes, then I was able to fall back to sleep. I actually look forward to not being able to fall back to sleep now just so I can read the book, and I was disappointed that it didn't happen on Sunday morning. LOL. 

Your turn! What are you grateful for that begins with B? Tell me in the comments below!

For an introduction to Golden Gratitude, click here.

Golden Gratitude - A is for Acceptance

Welcome to ABCs of Golden Gratitude 2026! 

This is the fourth year I'm doing this on my Caboodle of Cozies blog. 

Here's how it works:

Each day for the next 26 days, I will take a letter of the alphabet and write about one thing I'm grateful for that begins with that letter. This is something I used to do every November in an online forum that ended in January of 2020. I continued the tradition on a blog that became a springboard for Caboodle of Cozies, so I thought it would be fun to continue the tradition here.

I invite you to play along. In the comments below, tell me what you're grateful for that begins with the letter of the day.  If you are a day late (or more) you can still go back to each day you missed and comment. My posts aren't going anywhere. :-) There is a label called "Golden Gratitude" on the left sidebar so they will be easy to find. With that label, you can also go back and read previous  Golden Gratitude posts.

I will still continue my usual posts as often as possible, so some days this month I will publish more than one post. 

Let's begin.

A is for Acceptance. I'm grateful for accepting who I am. I'll write more about this in an upcoming Sunday Post, but what I'll say for now is that over the past few weeks, I've learned there's a name for how I approach my hobbies and other interests. The term is "scanner". I'm starting to lean into it rather than trying to go against my natural way of doing things.

Your turn! What are you grateful for that begins with A? Tell me in the comments below!

Murder, She Wrote (Season 5)

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On this date in 1925, actress Angela Lansbury was born. She masterfully played several roles in her lifetime, but she is best known to me as Jessica Fletcher on the long-running 80's and 90's series, Murder, She Wrote. I didn't start watching it until a few years ago when I first discovered cozy mysteries. Murder, She Wrote was a cozy mystery before the genre had a name.

Over the past few years, I've been working my way through the entire series. Thankfully, it regularly airs on more than one platform, so I have all episodes recorded and continuously recording since each episode only stays on the DVR for nine months. I finished watching season five earlier this year.

Season five premiered in 1988. The format hasn't changed. There are 22 episodes. Each episode is a one-hour long self-contained mystery. The only exception in season five is that the season finale is a two-part episode. Mystery writer, Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), continues to find herself in the right place at the right time to assist the authorities in solving murders. 

We do have one significant change in season 5. Mort Metzger (Ron Masak) is the new sheriff in Cabot Cove. I really liked Amos (Tom Bosley) as the sheriff, so I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this change. I'm pleased to say I enjoyed Mort as the new sheriff. He is not warming up to Jessica too quickly, understandably so, but he's competent and I liked his character overall.

There are five episodes in this season set in Cabot Cove, Maine, Jessica's hometown. Most episodes are set across the United States and some are set internationally. The coziest ones continue to take place in Cabot Cove and they tend to be some of my favorites. Some of these episodes are "Mr. Penroy's Vacation" (EP 3), "The Sins of Castle Cove" (EP 17), and the two-part season finale, "Mirror, Mirror On the Wall". Some other standout episodes set elsewhere were "Wearing of the Green" (EP 6) and "The Last Flight of the Dixie Damsel" (EP 7), 

My rating of 4/5 is based on the average number of stars I gave the episodes. I rated all of them on a scale of 1-5. Most of them received four stars and none of them received fewer than that. I enjoyed all of them, but I marked some of them down one star primarily because I identified the killer early in the episode, sometimes even before the body dropped, or they were predictable in other ways. I didn't feel this way as often in the earlier seasons. I don't know if it's because the mysteries are weaker or because I've just become better at identifying the culprits. I will say that even when I identified the culprit early, I didn't know the how or why. So it was still fun to watch it all unfold. 

As in previous seasons, there are guest stars on each episode. Some of the faces I recognized in season five were Jamie Farr, Conrad Janis, Andrea Gray, Michael Constantine, Robin Strasser, Gloria Loring, Anthony Geary, Dinah Shore, and Robert Mandan. I didn't always know their name, so I had to do a little research to identify them.

I can see myself revisiting some of these episodes in the future. Although I will know the whodunnit, it will be fun to look for the clues or simply spend time with the characters again. Before I do that, however, I'm really looking forward to watching season 6. 

Puzzle 148 - Autumn Vibes

Fall is in the air! I thought this was a fun puzzle to put together. I finished in 3:27 using 48 non-rotating pieces. Feel free to share your time and how you modified it if you like. Enjoy!

Friday Features 41

Happy Friday!

It's been over a month since I published Friday Features. Some things have changed in the blogosphere since then.  I will be participating in five blog hops. You can see the posts from those who are participating by clicking on the highlighted host links below, and if you're a blogger you can participate as well.

BOOK BLOGGER HOP, hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer

Question: Do you run more than one blog? If so, how do you manage your time?

My response:  I run two blogs - the one you're reading now that I started in 2022 and another one I started more than ten years ago. I only post on the older one once a year on my best friend's birthday and I keep it mostly private. It's become my way of documenting highlights from the year. I write it in the form of a letter to my best friend. She passed in 2010 and she is the inspiration for both of my blogs.

FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower

FRIDAY BOOK SNIPPETS, hosted by My Head is Full of Books and Bemused and Bookish

Today's snippets are from the e-book format of Murder in the Upper Crust (Deep Dish Mystery 6), by Mindy Quigley.

Here's the beginning:

I zested another lemon, adding the sunny yellow curls to the small mountain on the cutting board. My best friend, Sonya Perlman-Dokter, stood next to me, and if she hadn't been so preoccupied, she would have noticed that we already had more than enough zest to make the lemon-and-burrata flatbread pizza we were serving for lunch. In fact, I'd stress-zested enough peel to dress the salad, garnish the lemon tart that would accompany the meal, and render a small scale model of the Venus de Milo entirely in lemon zest.

And here's a snippet from 56%:

When she stepped into the cheery sunlight streaming in the windows, I gasped. Her hands were clenched, her jaw locked. Even the muscles around her eyes looked tight. The energy she gave off was like a rubber band on the brink of snapping.

This was an ARC that I already read and reviewed. I really enjoyed it. The book is set to be released later this month. You can read my full review here.

FELINE FRIDAY, hosted my messymimi's meanderings

I visited a cat café a few months before adopting Bell and Fiona. I saw a tunnel similar to this one and I noticed how much fun the cats were having with it. So I decided when Bell and Fiona were adopted they would have one too. They love it. Sometimes they play in it, sometimes they sleep in it, and sometimes they make it move like an inch worm. Can you guess which one is in the tunnel here?

NATURE FRIDAY, hosted by Living the LLB Life

We typically don't have a lot of fall colors until late October, but some patches are starting to turn.

Murder in the Upper Crust (Deep Dish Mystery 6), by Mindy Quigley

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Ever since I finished book 1 in Mindy Quigley's Deep Dish Mystery series, Six Feet Deep Dish, I've been hooked on these books. Most importantly, I keep coming back to the main characters who feel like friends. The mysteries are also well-crafted and engaging. I can't complain about the mouth-watering talk about pizza too.

In the sixth installment, Murder in the Upper Crust, gourmet pizza chef, Delilah O'Leary, has agreed to cater an event at an upscale wellness retreat. What could possibly go wrong at an event designed to foster serenity and relaxation? 

It turns out, a lot. 

Soon after a guided meditation, a dead body is found. Delilah can't help getting to the bottom of this murder mystery, but she must do this while her business is short-staffed. Can she work with the authorities to bring the killer to justice?

This is a cozy mystery, so we already know the answer to that question. However, I still enjoyed the journey. Some of the main characters were away for a good portion of the story, which was fine. In real life people do travel and Delilah's staff is no exception. Having them absent for some of the story, especially in the beginning, allowed other characters to become more fully developed, and because of that, we get to know them better. 

Once of the characters introduced in this installment, is the new chief of police. I loved her interactions with Delilah. The new chief sure does love to eat and she makes it known. Those scenes provided some very entertaining comic relief. I loved how her dialogue was woven into the spaces between her bites of food. I also enjoyed the way she accepted help from Delilah while working on the case.

When talking about characters, I must mention Delilah's cat, Butterball. He is one of my favorite cozy companions in the genre. He's not just Delilah's pet. He plays an integral role in the Deep Dish series, and this installment is certainly no exception. He adds coziness, humor, and excitement to the mysteries.

The mystery was well-crafted with several viable suspects who had opportunity and motive. There were enough twists and turns to me guessing until the big reveal. When the big reveal did come, I was on the edge of my seat as everything was unfolding. 

In addition to great characters and a compelling mystery, the atmosphere created in this book made me feel like I was there. The descriptions are vivid enough to pull the reader in without taking away from the flow of the story. The juxtaposition of the serene setting combined with a heinous crime made for the perfect murder mystery setting. 

I prefer cozies to be completely clean. There is some mild language in this installment that took me out of the story at times. I would have enjoyed it more without the language, but it didn't take me long to get back into it because the mystery was so good. Thankfully the mild language was infrequent.

This is a culinary cozy and there's plenty of foodie talk over the course of the story. That is what I love most about culinary cozies - the conversations about food incorporated into the book.  There are also mouth-watering recipes at the end that you can try at home.  

Murder in the Upper Crust is set in May leading up to Memorial Day, but it can certainly be enjoyed anytime of the year. As with most cozies, it is a self-contained mystery and it can be read as a standalone, but to follow the character development of the main cast, it's best enjoyed starting with book one, Six Feet Deep Dish. 

Murder in the Upper Crust releases in late October. Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Minotaur Books for providing me with a free eARC of this book.