Ginger Bolton is off to a good start with her Deputy Donut series. It is full of engaging characters like the widowed Emily who runs the towns donut shop which is named after her cat, Deputy Donut. She goes to the home of a regular customer with the woman's friends who are worried about her and they find their friend's body. Emily's husband was a cop killed in the line of duty and she becomes involved with the investigation, especially since helping her neighbor Lois after she was attacked as she was the best friend of the victim. Her best friend is a cop and her husband's partner is still on the force too. Some future sparks maybe? The story is fast paced and has a twist that I didn't see coming. Another treat is the bonus donut recipes at the end of the book as well as a peek of the next story. I will definitely be waiting for the next book!

I received an ARC from NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion

A cozy yummy read that ends with some amazing recipes for Do Nuts!
Ginger Bolton keeps the reader engaged and guessing who actually dun it.
From thinking it was the new neighbor and friend of the poor doll maker that had her last do nut just pages into the book.
And so was her long time friend that no one knew about really a friend or a foe?

And then the tables turn and the great nephew who had a history in town before he left 5 years ago becomes the suspect.

Or was it the neighbors who don't want sidewalks put into the neighborhood.

Or the post mistress that just might have a vendetta against the doll maker.

Emily's head is spinning from the ever growing list of suspects.

And then just when you think she is getting closer to an old friend Brent and helping him with the investigation while keeping it 'low key' he is taken off the case and an old rival is brought to town to investigate.

All does works out in the end but not before Emily is almost taken out by the 'real' murderer. Brent and her father in law and the
rest of the towns police arrive just in time to save her and arrest the 'real bad guy'.

Survival of the Fritters was a super fun and yummy read.

I enjoyed all the characters and look forward to many more books in this new series!

I received a complimentary copy from Great Escapes Tours.

A fabulous start to a new series! The setting is a enticing (I'll never get tired of donut shops in cozies) and the characters are well rounded and likable (even the killer)! Lots of twists and turns that kept me guessing until the end. I will definitely read more books in this series. Recipes at the end of the book look delectable! If you are a culinary cozy fan you will love this book!

My rating: 3 of 5 stars, it was okay.

Book 1 in the series.

An okay start to a new series. It was fun, and has a decent premise.

But... Main character Emily is a former 911 operator, the widow of a police detective and the daughter in law of a former police chief. Which would make you think that she's got some idea of how criminal investigations work. So it made it really hard for me to believe she would muck up a crime scene as badly as she did in this book! As a result, I found it kind of tough to suspend my disbelief as I read.

I liked the book enough that I'd read book two, if I could get it from my library. I think first in series tend to be the weakest, with characters just being introduced and relationships being explored. So I give this an "okay" rating, and I'll wait and see if book 2 improves.

SURVIVAL OF THE FRITTERS, the first book in the brand new Deputy Donut Mystery series by Ginger Bolton is a great addition to the culinary cozy world! There’s a certain satisfaction from starting a brand new series: new characters to become friends with, new locations to become acquainted with, and new foods to be introduced to. Ms. Bolton has created a very likeable and sympathetic protagonist in Emily Westhill. She is caring, ready to help out those in need, but is also quite plucky. A young widow, she works alongside and co-owns the Deputy Donut shop with her father-in-law. I love their easy, loving relationship with each other despite their grief over their tragic loss. The donut shop is adorable and the perfect place for the town’s police force to hang out, including Emily’s best friend, Officer Misty. It’s also the perfect meeting spot for the Knitpickers, a group of elderly knitting women. When one of the ladies in the group, Georgia, doesn’t show up, it doesn’t take long for Emily to get involved and assist the group in finding out what happened to their friend.

The mystery of the murder of kindly Georgia, who operated a doll hospital, is quite worrisome to the town, especially after another elderly woman in the Knitpicker group is attacked. The author provides a creative plot that ties in a cold-case murder involving Georgia’s son and the death of Emily’s husband. While getting involved means dredging up painful memories for Emily, she is determined to help solve the case and bring closure… not only for herself but for her elderly friends. There are plenty of viable suspects and the author provides an exciting, suspenseful finale where Emily shows her resourcefulness in bringing the murderer to justice.

There are plenty of mentions of mouth-watering donuts and fritters in the story. It was almost enough to make me head down to a local donut shop and stock up. Fortunately Ms. Bolton includes several yummy recipes at the back of the book, which I can't wait to try!

Survival of the Fritters is the first of new cozy series in the donut shop mysteries. The story features featuring Emily Westhill who runs a donut shop called Deputy Donut with her Father in law Tom. Emily is a former 911 operator who quit her job after her husband was killed in the line of duty and she eventually opens the donut shop.
The mystery starts out with Emily and Tom wondering what has happened to Georgia one of her regulars and part of the knitting group called Knitpickers. As Emily is closing up for the day, she finds the group about to go to Georgia’s house to check if she is ok. Emily tags along and finds Georgia’s body with donuts and a doll stuffed in her mouth. She instinctively reacts to remove the doll and save Georgia even though she knows it is too late. Of course, now Emily has left her fingerprints all over key pieces of evidence. That same night, Georgia’s best friend Lois and her neighbor is also attacked. Emily wants to help and protect Lois along with the desire to find out who killed her friend and customer Georgia. Georgia’s son Matthias was murdered 5 years ago and that murder has never been solved. Are the two murders connected? Lois wants Emily to help prove the innocence of her great nephew Randy in both murders. As the evidence mounts against Randy, Emily just cannot believe he is guilty. She does come up with some wild scenarios but it keeps the store moving along and keeps you guessing until the very end.
As with all first stories the author has to set up the town and the whole cast of characters around Emily. She has two solid best friends in Misty and Samantha as well as potential love interest in her husband’s former partner Brent. Loved her cat Deputy Donut (Dep) and loved the twist on how his name saved Lois from being killed. I would have also liked to see more interaction with the knitpickers, however, you can only fit so much into the story. Looking forward to the next installment of this series.

Who wouldn't love a book about a woman who runs the best donut shop around, donuts that would make your mouth water. Emily runs Deputy Donut, named after her cat with the same name. She also dabbles in solving murders despite many warnings from those close to her. This is a good book and a great beginning to a series also by the same name.

I was given an Advance Review Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a decent first in series. I love the concept for the book - a donut shop run by the ex-chief of police and his daughter-in-law. Unlike many cozy mysteries, our main character did not discover her husband cheating on her causing her to relocate to some remote town to lick her wounds and discover a whole new family/friends and a whole lot of murders. Emily's husband was a cop who was shot during an investigation and she is still recovering from that event in her life years later.

I enjoyed the characters in this - a mix of old residents in the town and some newcomers with history. And of course Emily, her father-in-law Tom and then her friends and potential love interests. And her cat Deputy Donut - who the donut shop is named after.

As is a challenge in a new cozy series, it's hard to introduce all of the characters and make them meaningful in the first book while carrying the mystery plot as well and I felt that at times the story gets bogged down in the background/story building at the cost of the suspense in the novel. I did have to force myself to read the middle as it dragged a bit, but I wasn't disappointed by the ending. I did have some worries that certain suspects got more than their share of the clues while the sleuths crafted elaborate schemes for reasons why it could have been other suspects and would have preferred more clues pointing in other directions.

All in all, I enjoyed this book and will be reading the next in the series.

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Set in fabulous Wisconsin this book gets this series off to a wonderful start.

We meet widow Emily Westhill and her father-in-law Tom, owners of the local donut shop lovingly named after her tabby cat Deputy Donut. When one of their regulars fails to show up to meet her knitting circle her friends get worried. By the end of the day, Emily tags along with the group to see if something happened to Georgia at home. When they find the woman dead on the floor surrounded by donuts from Emily’s shop, Emily has to draw on her dispatch training to get them through the aftermath of their discovery. The woman’s son died on the same day 5 years ago. A case that stuck with both her husband and his partner. Since her husband’s death, Emily has steered clear of his partner Brent, but this new murder has brought them back together. Emily used to be a good sounding board for her husband. Can she and Brent work together to solve this murder?

This author also wrote the Threadville Mysteries as herself, Janet Bolin. A series I absolutely loved. So when I heard she was writing a series set in my home state I was over the moon.

This new set of characters is very captivating. The idea of Emily working with her father-in-law/retired police chief is such a fun idea. Everyone knows how much police officers love their donuts. Emily and Tom work well together and the shop has a set up where Deputy Donut “Dep” can watch over the whole place without getting in trouble with the health department. He is a very special cat too, attentive, inquisitive and very important to Emily, the donut shop, and this story. Emily’s friends, Misty, a police officer and Samantha, an EMT, have Emily’s back no matter what. Emily is a wonderful protagonist. You know right away she has a caring heart, but it is a little closed off dealing with the grief of losing her husband and guilt thinking had she been working the dispatch when the call came in that maybe he would still be alive.

The mystery itself is pretty complex. The suspect pool was very small until Emily did a lot of snooping in both in the cold case and the new one. To say I was shocked at the big killer reveal would be an understatement. I really enjoyed the ending, it sure got my heart rate escalating.

As I said, the story is set in Wisconsin, but it was Emily’s Fallingbrook home and yard that were very intriguing. Her place and her neighbors are connected in a unique way, and she didn’t know it until this mystery begins.

The author writes with a delightful descriptive style that makes the story flow so well. She drew me in quickly and I was actually sad when I reached the final page. I want to know these characters better. I am excited to see what happens next in their lives. Goodbye Cruller World hits bookstores August 28 and I can’t wait.

Ginger Bolton is the author of Survival of the Fritters, the first book in the Deputy Donut Mystery series. Emily, once a 911 operator, is now the co-owner of a doughnut shop. She works with her father-in-law who is a former police chief as well as her feline Deputy Donut. When one of the shops regulars, Georgia, does not show up to meet with her friends, Emily goes with them to search the house. Georgia is dead in her home, and Emily has a mystery to solve. I enjoyed the premise of this book as well as the characters, but it seemed to drag on and on. In addition to it being slow, the story was repetitive. Emily would repeat herself. I might blame the slowness of the book to the fact that it was the first and would read a second book.

Princess Fuzzypants here:
Deputy Donut is a great place to meet and eat. Not only do most of the cops in town hang out there, so does a knitting group that is shaken to its core when one of its beloved members is murdered in her home. No one can figure out how a kind and gentle person could be so brutally slain...and why tragedy would strike twice in the same family.
Emily, a police widow, and her father in law, the former chief of police, own the place together, capably snoopervised by the namesake of the cafe, Deputy Donut herself, or Dep. Dep has things well in paw as Emily investigates the murder of mother and son and the attack upon the mother’s best friend, and Emily’s new neighbour.
In the process of solving the crime, Emily is able to start moving ahead with her life by solving the crime that contributed to the death of her husband. I really love Dep and Emily who fully appreciates her kitty....as well she should. The characters are endearing and three dimensional. The mystery is a good one that had me fooled almost to the end and I hope there will be more adventures.
I give this five purrs and two paws up.

Survival of the Fritters is the first installment of a new cozy series by Ginger Bolton. Emily co-owns Deputy Donuts (named after Deputy Donut, her cat), and when one of her regulars is murdered, Emily decides to find out why. This is a good start to a new series, with enough introduction and backstory to make you want to know more about the characters, and a great plot to boot. I’ll definitely be watching for book number two.

The title of this book cracked me up so I just had to read it. And the name of the cat is Deputy Donut, which is a terrible name for a cat, but still hilarious.
Emily and her father-in-law own the local donut shop and some of their regular customers is an elderly knitting group. One day one of the ladies, Georgia, in the group doesn’t show up. So after work Emily and the ladies go to Georgia’s house to make sure she’s ok only to find her dead. Not to long afterwards one of the other ladies, Lois, gets attacked in her backyard. Lois and Emily decide to find out who killed Georgia, her son 5 years earlier, and attacked Lois. Good thing Emily used to be a 911 operator and her husband was a police officer, so Emily knows some stuff.
I definitely had no idea who the killer was. This person never crossed my mind until the clues started adding up.

Emily Westhill owns a doughnut shop with her father-in-law, Jack in Fallingbrook, WI. They named the shop Deputy Donut. The shop's logo features a cute kitty cat wearing a policeman's hat. Jack used to be Fallingbrook Police Chief, but hung up his policeman's hat in favor of a fuzzy doughnut cap after his retirement. Many of the town's officers come into the shop for coffee and pastries. A local knitting group, the Knitpickers, are regulars as well. However, this time one of their most dependable members is missing. Georgia Treetor is a no-show. The group gets worried, so Emily accompanies the knitters to Georgia's house to check on her. Turns out Georgia isn't just late......she's dead. Murdered. Who would kill a friendly, little old lady who repairs dolls for a living? And is the crime related to the disappearance and killing of her son 5 years before?



I loved this book! What a cute start to a new cozy mystery series! The shop sounds like a a place I would love to have coffee -- bright colors, local artwork, tables made from clear coated slices of tree trunk. And all named after Emily's tortoiseshell kitty cat -- Deputy Donut or Dep for short. I would definitely stop for coffee if Deputy Donut were a real place! The mystery was more complex than I expected, and moved along at a nice pace. The characters are varied and well developed for a cozy.



The cover art is cute! And there are yummy recipes at the back of the book. :)



Great start to a new series! The second book in the Deputy Donut series, Goodbye Cruller World, will be out in August 2018. I will definitely keep reading this series! Well-written, great mystery and cute theme!

**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Kensington via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book!

For me, there is no greater joy in reading than a fresh, exciting cozy mystery. I realize exciting and cozy don't exactly go together, but little things excite me, OK? I like reading books that make me feel comfortable, and hungry, and a book about murder mysteries and donuts ticks those boxes! Add in a cat, genuine and reassuring female friendship, and I was completely sold. Best of all, this is the first in a series, and I can only imagine it getting better.

I really appreciated the back story to this one; I felt like Emily wasn't just thrown into this world/town, she was absolutely a part of it. Little details and memories made the mystery come together, and I didn't guess the culprit (I was waaaaay off) but it was in a good, believable way. I liked the spunky character of Lois, and the possible matchmaking for the future books. I don't see Emily jumping into anything soon, but her story was so sad that I want something good for her too.

I think this one is a must for cozy mystery fans, and I had absolutely no complaints. Five stars.

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.

This is a very good mystery. I thought I knew who the killer was, but I was wrong. Deputy Donut aka Dep the cat is my favorite character.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review.

First off, I have a weakness for the following - cozy mysteries, cats, coffee and donuts. I found a winner in Survival of the Fritters, the start of a new series. Emily and her cat, Deputy Donut (aka Dep) take center stage in a very natural way. She doesn't go snooping with the attitude that the police can't solve the case without her and the cat is "just" a really wonderful cat. Emily is the young widow of a local police detective who has a talent for making awesome donuts so, along with her father-in-law, she opens Deputy Donuts and serves the town donuts and coffee. When one of the senior ladies from the knitting group is found murdered just five years after the son was murdered, Emily is drawn into the case. She was one of the people who found the body. Teaming up with her new next door neighbor, Dep's "other mom" and friend of the murder victim, she searches for the solution.
Too many times the police come off as unable to solve the crime without lots of civilian help but not here. Emily sees details and is good at connecting the dots making for a satisfying mystery. She is part of the police 'family' of this small town. The clues are all there, the setting and the characters are well fleshed out and the cat? Terrific without being over the top. I'm looking forward to the next entry in the series and I'm so glad there are no calories to worry about just by reading about donuts. (But the descriptions of those donuts did make me drool more than a little bit.)

Still reeling from the unexpected death of her husband, Alec, 3 years ago, Emily is trying to move on with her life at the donut shop she owns with her father in law. Among the donut shop's favorite regulars is a group of older ladies, who have a knitting club called Knitpickers. So when one of the Knitpickers doesn't show up one morning, everyone is concerned. Later, they go to her house to check on her and find her dead, surrounded by donuts. Who killed Georgia and why? Is it related to the unsolved murder of Georgia's son, Mattias?

I'm not going to lie, the adorable cat on the cover made me want to pick up this book and it didn't disappoint! The excellent plot reeled me in like a fish and kept me turning pages and guessing almost up to the very last page! I liked that Emily didn't really go out and investigate, she just put the clues together (not that it didn't stop her from getting into trouble at the end.) I loved the characters, from spunky Lois and the Knitpickers to pragmatic Brent and the spark between him and Emily (mmph) they were all charming and realistic characters but let's face it, we all know it's the adorable feline Deputy Donut who steals the show. An excellent introduction to picturesque Fallingbrook, Wisconsin and definitely a place I'm eager to visit again.

This is the first book of the series and it's off to a great start. I love the doll hospital idea. Very neat. Wow- what a rollercoaster ride! You never know who to trust and how far they will go. I like the action at the end. This was a great and fun read. Recipes included.