Book Review: The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman

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The Meadowbrook Murders  by Jessica Goodman  is a young adult novel published on February 4, 2025. The story opens with the character Amy discovering the bodies of her classmates, Sarah and Ryan, who are undoubtedly deceased. Told from alternating perspectives of Amy and Liz, both students are trying to find out who and why someone would want to murder two students at a prestigious boarding school. I received an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of this book from NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group for free in exchange for my honest review. When the story first began, I thought it was taking place at a college or university before I realized it took place at a boarding school. Other than that slight confusion, this suspenseful mystery captured my attention from the very beginning and had me on the edge of my seat. Both of the main characters were vastly different from one another but were likable in their own way. Unfortunately, other than Amy and Liz, the only o...
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Book Review: Death by Food Truck: 4 Cozy Culinary Mysteries by Joi Copeland, Cynthia Hickey, Linda Baten Johnson, and Teresa Ives Lilly

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Death by Food Truck: 4 Cozy Culinary Mysteries by Joi Copeland, Cynthia Hickey, Linda Baten Johnson, and Teresa Ives Lilly is a collection of four novellas that are loosely related to each other.  There are a rash of deaths at the Birch Point Lake Park linked to four different food trucks.  This book collection was published on July 1, 2023.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Barbour Publishing for approving my request to read Death by Food Truck: 4 Cozy Culinary Mysteries by Joi Copeland, Cynthia Hickey, Linda Baten Johnson, and Teresa Ives Lilly.  I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for my honest review.  When I requested to read this book, I didn't realize that the stories had religion in them.  Had I known this, I wouldn't have requested it.

Overall, I would have enjoyed the stories much more had they not been religious, especially the first novella.  I felt like the first author was cramming religion down my throat.  The other three novellas were a little less religious.  There's nothing wrong with Christian books, but they're just not for me.  

The culprit in all four stories were very obvious to me from the beginning despite the authors trying to throw suspicion elsewhere.  Each novella also had a strong romantic element to it, which didn't bother me in the least bit.  The reason I chose to read these stories were because of the food themes, which I did end up enjoying immensely.

Three out of five stars is what I rated Death by Food Truck: 4 Cozy Culinary Mysteries by Joi Copeland, Cynthia Hickey, Linda Baten Johnson, and Teresa Ives Lilly.  If you like Christian Fiction, then you'd likely enjoy these stories, but as I said before, they weren't really for me because of the religious elements.

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