Annie “Halsey” Hall inherits her grandmother's house in California and decides that it's a perfect place to start over when her marriage in New York fails. She is invited by her new neighbors to the Rose Avenue Wine Club but enters the wrong residence only to find a dead body. Finding that she is the chief suspect, Halsey enlists the aid of the Wine Club to find the real killer.

Great mix of characters good writing and good setting.

It was a decent read. Not sure if I would continue reading the series though.

Full Bodied Murder by Christine E. Blum is the first book in the cozy Rose Avenue Wine Club Mystery series.
This is a fun new mystery series.
Halsey is the protagonist who has moved to California from New York to start over with her beloved lab. The humorous antidotes about comparisons between both states is interwoven throughout. Halsey is enjoying her new home and neighborhood as she slowly integrates into the community. She is soon asked by a friend to join their women's wine club .
On her way to her first meeting she mistakenly goes to the wrong house and finds a dead body. She is suspect number one and must work to clear her name. She asked her wine group to help and the ladies are on the case. The surprising clues left me guessing throughout and I enjoyed the chase to the end.
I loved this well crafted story . The characters all add to the story and its very humorous . I look forward to the next in series. Thank you for the ARC which did not influence my review.

A strong start to a new series. The mystery and plot were engaging. The characters and relationships between them were well developed and made the reader feel they were a part of the story. I cannot wait to see what else the author has in store for everyone.

This is a good start to a new cozy mystery series. (Rose Avenue Wine Club Mystery). Halsey moves to California from NY after a divorce and ending a partnership in a business. She arrives on Rose Avenue in time to walk into her first meeting of the Rose Avenue Wine Club and finds the hostess dead in the kitchen. Meeting a new man, finding fellow dog lovers, and helping solve the murder certainlly keeps Halsey busy. There's something mysterious going on in her new neighborhood and she's wondering if she should pack up and move back to the east coast. Looking forward to book 2.

Very rarely do I give up on a book, but I did just that with Full Bodied Murder by Christine E. Blum. This is the first book in the Rose Avenue Wine Club Mystery series. Due to the foul language in this book, I never got past chapter two. I can overlook a bit of language, but I do not want it to overtake the book especially when I am reading a cozy mystery. This one was simply not for me.

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Annie “Halsey” Hall has moved to California and landed on Rose Avenue. She realizes immediately how different it will be from her life in New York. Here she has neighbors that she wants to get to know, so she is excited to be asked to join the Rose Avenue Wine Club. She sets off with her puppy to attend the first club meeting but when she arrives her dog drags her through the house where she discovers a dead woman. Not the welcome she had expected at all, especially when the police arrive and consider her their prime suspect.

She soon learns she was at the wrong address and meets up with the women of the wine club. They promise to help her clear her name and they start their own investigation. Halsey wants to get to know these ladies better as she fears one of them may actually be the killer.

We meet a lot of characters in this first book of the series. The wine club ladies all live on the same street and all of them seems to have a secret. The one thing they all have in common is their love of wine. They consume a bottle or two or more every time they meet. I am not sure if the helped or hindered their investigation 🙂 They do put themselves in some dangerous situations and more than one of them end up in the hospital.

I did enjoy the introduction of Halsey’s love interest. Jack, dog trainer/dog whisperer has been hired by Halsey to help her train her loveable Labrador puppy. Their relationship had a spark from their first meeting and continues to grow throughout the story.

The plot has a fever pitch as so much happens. In addition to the murder, there are drug dealers, middle of the night car deals, rats invading a business, theft, hidden security cameras, angry and nosy neighbors, illegal aliens, and general shady deals all over the place. It all comes together to make a darn good mystery.

Everyone would enjoy this story but wine lovers will find details about all the wine mentioned in the story and a Glossary of Wine Terms and the end of the story.

I feel as if we have just gotten a good sip into the lives of these characters. The author has left them plenty of room to grow. I am excited to see what she decants about them in the next book. Murder Most Fermented will be ready to pour April 24, 2018.

Halsey has moved into her new home. To get to know her neighbors better, she joins their Rose Avenue Wine club. Not long after that, she finds one of her neighbors dead. Sadly, this makes her the main suspect. Now Halsey must work to discover who is the real murderer.

This is book #1 in what a fun cozy mystery series. In knew I was going to like this story when they author made my chuckle a few times in the first chapter. Halsey is smart and has a wry sense of humor. Her neighbors and wine club members are a mixed bag of eclectic characters. There is a small bit of romance. I'm glad I got in on this series at the ground floor and look forward to seeing what happens with this group in future installments.

Thanks to Kensington books for providing this ARC via Netgalley.

Full Bodied Murder by Christine E. Blum is the first book in A Rose Avenue Wine Club Mystery series. Annie “Halsey” Hall is thirty-six years old and starting over. She has divorced her husband, starting a new software apps company, and moved across country from New York to Rose Avenue in California. Halsey was happy to receive an invitation to attend the Rose Avenue Wine Club. She is off to attend her first meeting with her puppy, Bardot. Halsey finds the front door ajar and Bardot runs into the dark house. After some stumbling and knocking into furniture, Halsey finds the homeowner with a kitchen knife protruding from her body. It turns out that Halsey went to the wrong home for the meeting. The victim is Rosa Sobel and the police have set their sights on Halsey as the killer. To clear her name, Halsey, with the ladies of the Rose Avenue Wine Club, start investigating the residents of Rose Avenue to uncork the culprit. It seems, though, that murder might not be the only criminal activity taking place on their street.

Full Bodied Murder is not what I expected. I thought the characters lacked development (along with the setting---we are told about the street, but what about the town—its name) and Bardot overshadows the secondary characters. There are frequent mentions of wine and wine terminology (with dictionary at back of book for those who need assistance—like me). With the amount of wine the group drank, I am surprised that none of them have problems with their livers. I believe the author tried to cram too much into one story. Every single person on Rose Avenue is quirky and there are numerous activities going on (yogurt shop, nosy neighbor, cars shifting around during the night, drug dealers, theft, illegal cameras, angry neighbors, etc.). The story jumps all over the place with a distinct lack of focus. Of course, let us not forget the police who concentrate their investigation on Halsey who did not even know the dead woman. Halsey contaminates evidence and I am curious how they can get a conviction when she ruins the chain of custody on evidence. Then there is the flirtation, romance and sexual innuendo/tension between Halsey and then men she encounters. Full Bodied Murder also contains foul language (fair warning). The various mysteries can be figured out by the readers. The killers’ identity will come as no surprise. The next book in A Rose venue Wine Club Mystery series is Murder Most Fermented (I will not be reading it).

This is a great book with a wonderful story and well developed characters. The story flowed very well and was very enjoyable. This book will keep you reading long into the night and you will not want to put this book down until you finish. This was such a great read and full of surprises. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader’s copy of this book. The free book held no determination on my personal review.

Annie “Halsey” Hall has left New York City after a divorce leaves her looking for a new start. She moves all the way across the country to Santa Monica, California and is soon invited to join a neighborhood group, the Rose Avenue Wine Club. Excited to join her new friends at a club meeting, she accidentally enters the wrong home and instead of a welcoming greeting and a glass of wine, she finds a woman’s dead body. Being new in town, Halsey becomes a suspect, and enlists the help of the other club members to help find the real killer. Unfortunately, she’s not sure who she can really trust.

Many cozy’s feature book clubs, sewing circles, or crafting clubs, so this debut of a new series featuring a main character who belongs to a wine club sounded unique. The series has promise, but tries too hard to fit a lot of different things into a first book. There are several side plots, but the characters, especially Halsey’s new friends, are under-developed. The other members of the wine club blur together, so I would have rather had more focus on getting to know the main characters through one strong plot instead of so much going on at the expense of having characters with which the readers can easily connect. I was impressed that the other club members, as well as a nosy neighbor, band together with Halsey to prove her innocence since they just met her. In addition, she is quick to jump into a new relationship. I like her love interest, but was surprised at how close they got so quickly.

Some of the things that occur during the investigation are funny, but sometimes it seems the author is trying too hard to make all the characters quirky and all the situations over-the-top. The book was at its best when things were more calm and realistic and unexpected, such as Hasley’s friendship with the difficult to get along with Marisol. I enjoyed those moments more than the sillier escapades in the story. To fit with the wine club theme, the author cleverly includes a list of the wines the Rose Avenue Wine club drank, along with a glossary of wine terms.

Entertaining cozy mystery. Halsey gets quite the welcome to the neighborhood. Moving from one coast to the other is traumatic enough without finding a body. The wine club sounds like a hoot with a diverse cast of characters. Add in a hunk with a dog, along with Los Angeles area descriptions and it becomes a delightful bit of reading. I look forward to the next one in this series.

Full Bodied Murder is the first book in Christine E. Blum’s Rose Avenue Wine Club Mystery series. This is a lighthearted cozy with a cast of colorful characters, but it seemed to me that there were too many strange happenings occurring simultaneously and it was hard to follow.

After her divorce, thirty-six year old Annie Elizabeth “Halsey” Hall left her home in New York City and moved to Southern California. Looking forward to a new start, Halsey purchased a lovely home on Rose Avenue with a swimming pool to keep her Labrador Retriever, Bardot, occupied while she works. Her new neighbors invite her to their Wine Club meeting, but she wasn’t paying attention to the address and winds up entering the wrong house, where she discovers a body in the backyard with a knife plunged into her back, and becomes a suspect in the murder of Rosa Sobel. She enlists her new friends and a nosy neighbor to help clear her name and find the true culprit.

I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed it.

This is the first in a series. The second book in this series is scheduled April, 2018.

The main character, Halsey Hall, moves to California after a failed marriage. She starts her new life after divorce with a puppy, Bardot, and a change in location from New York. Halsey moves into a neighborhood of characters. Halsey's first social event has Halsey walking into the home of a neighbor who has been murdered.

In spite of the inauspicious start to Halsey's neighborhood socializing, she quickly becomes accepted into the social circle, charms a grouchy neighbor, and investigates the murder so that Halsey can clear her name with the police. There is a lot of wine drinking and appetizer eating. This book made me hungry!

I would get frustrated with the book because the timeline was confusing and the character development was muddy. I think that there can be enjoyable books to read in this series, I will read the next book, and I will hope that more attention is paid to the overall pacing of the next book, Murder Most Fermented.

As a first in a new series, Full Bodied Murder is a solid hit.
Annie “Halsey” Hall has left the east coast and a bad marriage behind. Spreading her wings and looking for a change, Halsey heads to California.
A new house and new friends are part of her plan, but walking into a murder scene and not wine club was not in the picture.
As Halsey tries to find some answers, she finds herself with some quirky friends as well.

This is a lighthearted cozy mystery and has the potential to become a popular series.

The main character is easy to relate to and the cast of colorful characters add an exciting twist to this series.
I voluntarily read an ARC of this book offered by the publisher and NetGalley.

I received a free copy of "Full Bodied Murder" from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Halsey and her spunky Labrador Retriever, Bardot, are new to California but she quickly makes friends with the neighborhood wine club. On her way to her first meeting she stumbles upon a dead body landing on the top of the police's suspect list. With the help of her new found friends and a nosy neighbor, she has to clear her name and find the real killer before they strike again. I enjoyed the new series by Christine Blum and will be excited to revisit the Rose Avenue Wine Club on their next adventure. My own wine club, I mean book club, is looking forward to this selection.

Try this one if you're interested in starting a new series- and keep in mind that it's the first so things might seem bit scattered. Halsey and her faithful dog Bardot have relocated to California. The last thing she expects when she is excited to join her new neighbors for an evening of wine sipping is that she'll find a body and that she will be a suspect in the murder. In classic cozy style, she enlists her new friends in the quest to find the truth. Halsey is the focus so these characters are less well developed (and not always memorable); I expect that to change as the series moves on. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. This is an entertaining fast read that I expect will launch a good series.

This book was so jumbled up, it was hard to follow. Character developments and revelations didn’t make any sense, the timeline was confusing and the ending unsatisfactory. Definitely a hard no.

I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC copy of this book.
This was a fun start to a new cozy mystery series that had a lot of enjoyable characters, an interesting place to live and a really good murder mystery.
I would definitely like to read the next book in the series.

After her marriage failed Annie “Halsey” Hall decided to get as far from New York as she could by heading out to sunny California. Halsey found herself a lovely new home on Rose Avenue with a swimming pool in back to keep her young lab occupied while she worked. Moving into her new home she wonders about the neighbors seeing her first impression is of the lady next door keeping an eye out on her.

Before long Halsey finds herself making new friends in her new town when she meets a group of ladies that invite her to come to their wine club meeting. As Halsey heads over to the home for the meeting she arrives to find an open door with no one around. Thinking the club may be out back Halsey heads in only to find a dead body. As police arrive Halsey realizes she mistakenly went to the wrong home and now finds herself a suspect in murder. Halsey then enlists the help of the ladies in the wine club to clear her name and solve the crime.

Full Bodied Murder by Christine E. Blum is the first book in the cozy Rose Avenue Wine Club Mystery series. As with most cozy mysteries this series comes with it’s own unique hook to center the story around and that is the group’s love of wine and there are plenty of mentions throughout the book of different varieties. The main character is a new comer to the neighborhood and finding her way into the group and out of a murder charge with the local police.

While in the end I did enjoy this for the most part I also think it did have a few flaws. One that I noticed was there could have been a lot more depth given to the supporting characters to make them stand out a bit more, I would often forget who was who. It seemed the main character’s dog, Bardot,was featured more than anyone else but who doesn’t love a great animal?? The neighborhood also had a lot of shady dealings for being supposedly a great place to live and the budding relationship had a rough start I didn’t quite enjoy. Overall though the story was an OK one that I would probably test out the second book of the series, would hate to miss out on Bardot’s latest antics as he stole the show with this one.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.