I actually don’t read many foodie cozy mysteries, but the Noodle Shop Mysteries are an exception. First, I do love Chinese restaurant food. When I was pregnant, we ate at the same Chinese restaurant in the mall that the woman who owned it gave us a baby present. Second, it takes place in Cleveland, Ohio, and I always enjoy it when a story is set somewhere I’ve been and Amber’s college is about 30 minutes away. Third, Lana’s a good character and her family is a hoot.

Lana’s first catering job is going well – until the murder of course. Donna Feng, a long-time friend of the Lee family, is clearly the most likely suspect to have killed her nanny, but she asks Lana to help prove her innocence by figuring out who the killer actually was. This is Lana’s fifth “investigation” but this time she may be in over her head. I do think this would work as a stand-alone, but I’ve been reading the series since the beginning.

There are several possibilities and the clues are well-done; they make sense with the final whodunnit but they also keep the spotlight shining on different suspects. This time around, Lana joins forces with a local private investigator who I liked. That’s one thing about this series, people do for the most part take Lana seriously. The PI agrees to let Lana tag along and help. Adam, Lana’s boyfriend, worries about her safety, but is never over-bearing or dismissive. But once again, the boyfriend is a detective. Yes, it makes it easier on the amateur sleuth but it’s a bit overused. And why he keeps putting up with her lying to him is beyond me. If she would just have told him where she was going she would end up in less danger, because (once again) she makes an impulsive decision and ends up putting her life in danger.

I enjoy the glimpses into the upper-class Chinese American society and I imagine it is as interconnected as it seems here, especially in a city like Cleveland. It’s also nice that the sleuth actually does have to take care of her real job, even during her investigations. She has to make sure the restaurant is running and get someone to cover shifts she misses.

As far as cozy mysteries go, this is a fun one. It follows all the “rules” but has its own outlook and shows a culture we don’t usually see in this genre. But it always makes me want to go out for Chinese.

If you follow the author on facebook, she recently shared some photos and videos from Chinese New Year which I thought were really neat.

This is the first time I've read this author and I enjoyed this book. I never felt lost in regards to the characters even though I hadn't read the others in the series. Other than Kimmie, I liked the characters, the setting and the mystery.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Who killed Donna's nanny Alice and put her body in the swimming pool during a big party at Donna's house? Well, luckily for everyone, Lana Lee, our intrepid amateur detective, catered the party and was there when it happened- and swooped up a thumb drive of critical info someone left for Donna. Donna's got a secret past and she's afraid it's coming. back to bite her but is that really what's going on? What's the backstory on Alice? This latest installment in a series I admit to being quite fond of takes Lana largely out of her noodle shop and into suburban homes in Cleveland. In some ways, she's grown up and now she's made a contact with a real PI. Don't worry-Megan, Adam, and the rest of the crew are still here (including Kikko the pug) although there's a little less about Lana's family this time out (and I missed them). There are multiple red herrings and frankly I didn't guess the solution- which made it another winner for me. Thanks to net galley for the ARC. Don't worry if you haven't read the earlier ones as this will be fine a a standalone.

Egg Drop Dead is the fifth book in Vivien Chien's A Noodle Shop Mystery series. I enjoy this series. I find it engaging, witty, and entertaining.

This is Lana’s first catering gig. Doesn’t turn out as she hoped. No one was expecting the help to be murdered. The client is an old family friend and requests Lana’s help. Who really killed the nanny? And why?

As in some of the cozies I read, the heroine puts herself in unnecessary danger. These women are smarter than that. That is my only criticism of the story.

I was given an advanced e-copy of the story and am not required to leave a positive review.

Let’s start the next one.

The Noodle Shop Mystery series has quickly become one of my favorite new series. I get so excited when I get approved by NetGalley for the newest addition to the series. I cannot explain why but when I am reading I am smiling even when someone gets murdered. Strange, right?

I would love to be Lana for even one day especially on a Sunday when she eats dim dum with her family. I have never had dim sum but she makes it sound oh so yummy. Get your belly full of yummy deliciousness and go home curl up with your love and read the afternoon away. Sigh...sounds like a perfect Sunday.

I was shocked at who the villain was and why in Egg Drop Dead. Red herrings abound and keep you on your toes throughout the book. Every book has been excellent at this.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin's Press, through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

I received this ARC via Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press, in return for an honest review. While the fifth book in this series, it is easily read as a standalone. Lana Lee manages her family’s restaurant in the Asia Village, Cleveland, Ohio. In this latest book, Lana’s expanding the restaurant’s options by starting a catering business. During their first catering party for Donna, the owner of the Asia Village, an altercation disrupts the festivities and an employee is found dead in the pool. As the prime suspect, Donna asks Lana to find the truth. Lana already knows certain things about Donna’s past that allow Lana to seek clarity when the police are hampered. Luckily, Lana has a network of family, friends and her significant other, Detective Adam Trudeau, to help figure out who really committed murder. Was it Donna, someone from Donna’s past or someone from the local Asian community? This is a great cozy series; I’m so glad that St. Martin’s Press and Ms. Chien continue to explore Lana’s world.

Egg Drop Dead by Vivien Chien (Noodle Shop Mysteries #4) 4 stars

Following last years Murder Lo Mein, we again find Lana Lee at the scene of a crime. Lana is catering an event at Donna Feng's house and wants to do well to increase business opportunities at Ho-Lee Noodle House. However, a body is found in the family pool - it is the new nanny - Alice. Donna Feng is now a suspect and she is counting on Lana to solve the mystery. The story is complicated with dark pasts, family secrets and unknown motives. I found the mystery a little slow in the beginning, but it picked up in the middle. A new character is introduced, Lydia Shepard, a private investigator and I hope that she will make future appearances in this series. I enjoyed this book very much and look forward to next book in this series.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martins Press for this ARC.

Lana Lee’s first-ever catering event is the birthday party for Donna Feng, the owner of the Asia Village shopping plaza where Ho-Lee Noodle House is located. But the party goes awry when Donna rants at nanny Alice for letting her twin daughters go amok. Then Alice is found drowned in the outdoor pool. Before the police arrived at the crime scene, Donna entrusts Lana with a thumb drive shaped like a terra-cotta soldier. Now it’s up to Lana to help clear Donna and ends up learning about Donna’s earlier life in China.

When Donna goes missing, Lana gets help from PI Lydia look for the missing mother. Once again, Lana gets into danger when meeting up with the killer and his surprise accomplice.

This is the fifth Noodle Shop mystery and this series continues to get better with each book.

I received an eARC from Netgalley and St. Martin's Press with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

This continues to be one of my favorite cozy mystery series. Lana and her friends remain fresh characters and while Lana does take some risks, they are never silly or foolish. I love her friends and family as well. A must read for all fans of light mysteries.

Lately, I haven't been that into cozy mysteries. But this one has given me a kind of cozy mystery redemption. It's a very straightforward, well paced story, with a satisfying ending. Although I have not read other books in this series, I was able to pick up with this title and enjoy the story. I am excited to go back through the series and read the other books. Thanks to Netgalley for a complimentary digital copy!

Egg Drop Dead is a fun read and wittily written. The characters, especially Lana Lee, are affable and likable. Although a murder mystery, it’s an enjoyable journey, to flesh out the offenders. Enjoy the ride, you will not be disappointed. Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Egg Drop Dead is the fifth book in Vivien Chien’s A Noodle Shop Mystery series. This is an easy and fun read, with a solid mystery, witty writing, and affable characters. There are twists and turns, red herrings, and multiple suspects to keep the reader engaged and guessing.

Lana Lee is the manager of her family’s Chinese restaurant, Ho-Lee Noodle House, in Asia Village, a quaint shopping center, in the Cleveland, Ohio area. She has an older sister, Anna May, who is in law school, shares an apartment with her best friend, Megan Riley, has a pug named Kikko, and is dating Detective Adam Trudeau of the Fairview Park Police Department. Lana decided to expand the restaurant by adding catering services. Their first client is Donna Feng, a family friend and owner of Asia Village. During the party, Donna loses it and yells at the nanny, Alice Kam, for failing to supervise her twin teenage daughters properly. When Alice’s body is found in the pool, Donna becomes the prime suspect. Donna has some things in her past that must remain secret to ensure the safety of her family, and she wants Lana, who knows about her past, to use her sleuthing skills to clear her name and uncover the truth.

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

I still say that the best part of this book is the Mahjong Matrons and if Vivien Chien ever leaves them out, I will probably stop reading the series. As a matter of fact, they should be the focus of the next book. Just imagine the matrons, who always have the answers, sending Lana out to do their own personal sleuthing. I have this whole Lincoln Rhyme: Bone Collector scenario going on in my head -- but I digress.

To generate additional business for the Ho-Lee Noodle House, Lana decides to offer a catering service. Of course, Donna Feng, who always has one worry or another, hires Lana for a party and just when Lana thinks the evening went well, the body of one of Donna’s employees is found floating in the pool. Of course, we are not going to jump to the conclusion that the person with the wet clothes has anything to do with it so for the next 300 odd pages we follow Lana and her menagerie of friends, private investigators, the police, and co-workers through a maze of who-done-it.

To be fair, there were a couple of, ‘oh, I didn’t see that coming’ moments, but for the most part, the attempted blackmail plot coordinated by bumbling fools was a stretch. Yet once again, Lana Lee, manager of the Ho-Lee Noodle House outsmarted the criminals and trained professionals alike to bring peace to her life and those of her community.

Egg Drop Dead is the 5th Noodle Shop mystery by Vivien Chien. Due out 25th Feb 2020 from Macmillan on their St. Martin's imprint, it's 320 pages and will be available in ebook and paperback formats.

This is a well written and plotted series with appealing characters and a fun cozy vibe. With this, the fifth, book, the returning characters are more fleshed out and three dimensional and main character Lana Lee is a mix of feisty, vulnerable, and sweet. There were admittedly a few places in the story which had me smacking my forehead at her naiveté, but there weren't all that many.

Although it's the 5th book in the series, the author is quite adept at weaving the necessary backstory into the narrative and it works perfectly well as a standalone. I enjoyed finding out more about family friend Donna Feng and her family's shady past. There is nothing triggering or violent (apart from the requisite murders, which are not graphic), and the language is clean (apart from a few mild curse words) and there's no sexual content other than a few chaste kisses.

The plot and revolving characters center around a fictive Chinese shopping area called Asia Village where Lana manages her family's restaurant. The only thing which really required massive amounts of suspension of disbelief for me at this point in the series is the staggering statistical improbability of all these murders happening in the same area with the same extended families and being (mostly) unconnected. I really -love- Chinese cuisine from all areas of China, and I think even I would be wary of eating there. She's like the Asian version of Jessica Fletcher.

Well written and fun. I have enjoyed the series.

Four stars.

Lana Lee, manager of Ho-Lee Noodle House, is catering for Donna Feng's fancy dinner party. During the party, Donna yells at the nanny for failing to properly supervise the children. When the nanny is found dead in the pool, she immediately becomes the main suspect. Donna has a few theories about the murder and wants Lana to uncover the truth.

Egg Drop Dead is the fifth book in Vivien Chien's A Noodle Shop Mystery series. This is an entertaining and engaging read, with witty dialogue, mouthwatering descriptions of Chinese food, and a realistic cast of characters. I absolutely loved this book and enjoyed reading about the Asian American culture. Lana Lee is one of my favorite cozy mystery heroines. She reminds me so much of myself, and I feel like she's someone I would hang out with in real life. She's smart, sassy, loyal to friends and family and has a penchant for solving mysteries. I love the relationship between Lana and her family and found their interactions to be very relatable. Lana and her best friend Megan worked well together and made a great sleuthing team. I do hope that they include Kimmy again in future investigations because she's hilarious, and I think she would be a great addition to their team.
The murder mystery was cleverly plotted, with plenty of suspense, suspects, and clues to keep readers on the edge of their seats. I will definitely be reading more books in this well-written and humorous cozy mystery series.

I received an ARC from St Martin's Press through NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Egg Drop Dead by Vivien Chien is book five in this easy to read Cozy. I have read all of them and this one did not disappoint.
Lana has branched out doing catering and her first customer is a dinner party for Mrs. Feng. During the party, Lana finds the nanny floating face down in the pool and Mrs. Feng is the main suspect but Lana knows she couldn't have done it or could she. Then when Mrs. Feng asks her to investigate on her own, Lana agrees and enlists her roommate Megan to help. The one problem for Lana is her detective boyfriend Adam isn't on this case since it is not in his jurisdiction.
There are plenty of twist and turns that have you guessing to the end. There is humor, family, and a bit of romance.
The only problem is you are left craving noodles.
I was given an ARC by NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this new book in the series. It was intriguing and extremely entertaining. This one definitely reminded me of why I love this cozy series. It kept me guessing throughout. I was constantly trying to figure out whodunit, and was pleasantly surprised with the ending. I always enjoy the community aspect that this author describes. I absolutely love the interactions between Lana and the various other major and minor characters. I think what I enjoyed most was the fact that the focus want necessarily on the noodle shop but on the mystery itself. The weakest plot line was the ex boyfriend story, I just didn't think it was necessary. Overall, very enjoyable thriller. I look forward to the next one in the series. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin Press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Usually my taste in mystery novels falls nebulously somewhere between cozies and dark realistic ones. As much as I don’t want violence that is too graphic or an unrelentingly dark and depressing tone, I find a lot of cozies too silly, too difficult for myself to suspend disbelief. But this year one of my reading challenges is “A book with a pun in the title“. And what genre has more puns than cozy mysteries? None! So it was time to pick a cozy to read.

My other problem with cozy mysteries is that they have tended to be unrelentingly white in culture, setting, and characters. I did not want to read any more books about small town white people who owned cats and liked to cook or bake or tend bees. I don’t need recipes for Amish crumb cake or southern peach pie or Grandma’s mac n cheese. But that’s when I remembered coming across one of Vivien Chien’s books in the library and putting it on my TBR to read eventually. A cozy centered around a Chinese noodle shop sounds like fun. I could have requested the first book in the series, but the title didn’t seem sufficiently pun-ny for my purposes, and Egg Drop Dead (number five in the Noodle Shop mysteries), was available on NetGalley. Score!

So I requested a copy and started reading. And while I mostly enjoyed it, and found it a relaxing read, I did come to a couple of conclusions. First, I am still not a huge fan of cozy mysteries. It’s still difficult for me to buy that a private citizen with no training could not only investigate mysteries as serious as murder, but also do so successfully and without getting themselves killed.

But, secondly, if I was going to read a cozy mystery, I was glad I picked one of Vivien Chien’s books. While I still found the plot somewhat implausible, I enjoyed the little glimpses into Chinese-American culture, Asian-American retail centers, and life in Cleveland, Ohio. References to things like the Great Lake that borders the city, with the lakeside mansions where many of the wealthy characters in the book lived, lent a sense of place to the story, and the dynamics of some of the Chinese-American families in the area, including their deepest, darkest secrets, made for enjoyable reading. I also appreciated having a heroine who works a service job as her primary employment. Middle class people need representation too!

The main character, Lana Lee, is a Chinese American woman who helps run the day-to-day work of the family Chinese restaurant, and who, apparently, solves mysteries on the side as a hobby. I don’t feel like I missed out on much by not having read the previous books in the series yet. Chien slips in the necessary details from previous books throughout this story in a natural, easy way. No boring info dumps or exposition. Instead, we pick right up with Lana’s life, still dealing with the events of the previous book, still carrying on her relationship with her new boyfriend Adam, still living with her equally curious roommate Megan and her good-natured dog Kikko, still working at the family restaurant. And then we jump right into murder, at a party where Lana is running the catering at a party for Donna, a woman whose husband’s murder was solved by Lana in an earlier book. Can’t Donna catch a break? (The answer is no, and the only question is if she’s the one who did the dastardly deed, to the maid, in the swimming pool.)

Lana is very curious, and I can see how that might drive her to investigate situations when she doesn’t have all the answers. She is also rather impulsive, with a flexible relationship with telling the truth. She adds additional danger to her part-time hobby by lying to friends, family, and even her boyfriend about what she’s doing and where she’s going. She came across as immature to me–well-meaning and nice, but immature and prone to poor decision making. I was frustrated with her more than once throughout the story. I especially didn’t see how her boyfriend could still be involved with her, considering how much she lied to him, even after they swore to each other to tell the truth. Or how he, as a police officer himself, was OK with her dangerous and potentially illegal side hobby. But there we go with cozies being unrealistic again….

Overall this wasn’t a bad book, as cozies go. Lana and her friends, family, and boyfriend were likable people. I honestly had no idea “who done it” until the final reveal, and I enjoyed the glimpses of life of middle class and wealthy Chinese-American families in Cleveland. The title is certainly clever, as is the attractive cover art. My own personal tastes in books means that I probably won’t seek out the rest of this series, but I would certainly recommend it to friends who do enjoy reading cozy mysteries. If you also enjoy cozies, I hope you’ll check out the series.

Thank you to #NetGalley and St Martin’s for sharing this advanced copy of #EggDropDead with me. This is my honest opinion.

4.5 Stars

This is the fifth book in the A Noodle Shop mystery series by Vivien Chien.

Lana Lee is back and smack dab in the path of another dead body. Her first ever catering event turns memorable when a domestic worker is found dead. And the lady running the party gives Lana a thumb drive and that gives her the compulsion to go into investigative mode much to her boyfriend’s dismay. Lee just can’t resist a mystery and as she searches for the killer, she puts herself into the path of a lot of danger.

Everything isn’t always what it seems in this mystery. It is the type of story where you feel like you have the killer in sight and then something else gets thrown in and then…. NOPE! You have no idea to the identity of the bad guy. I love it when books surprise me. And this one surely did. What a well-crafted piece of work. Dialogue was on point and the characters were so fully blown that I thought I was reading about real people. I really look forward to these Noodle Shop mysteries when they come out. Definitely a series I want to continue to follow.

If you love a good cozy mystery, you have to check this one out. You won’t be disappointed.

I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.

First novel from V C, enjoyed the info on how Lana came into being the main character of this series. Kept me reading to see how this mystery got solved and with so many possibilities. It was a surprise I hadn’t seen coming. Added to my keep reading list!