The Cape Cod Foodie Mystery is a great new cozy mystery series with likable interesting characters, friendship, potential romance, and an intriguing cozy mystery. Samantha Barnes is a chef in NYC but she gets in a feud with her ex and it goes viral. So when Sam inherits her Great Aunt Ida's house on Cape Cod and lands a job writing restaurant reviews, she decides a change would be ideal. The house she inherits needs some work plus it comes with a large rambunctious puppy. Her high school crush, Jason, is now the Harbormaster. What was she thinking moving here? But Sam makes the best of it until she can sell the house. While sampling some seafood chowder, Sam finds an unpopular local who appears to have drowned but Sam isn't convinced. She begins to poke around to find out what happened but it puts Sam in danger. Sam, her neighbor Helena, her friends and Jason are great characters and at times add humor and heart. The mystery was intriguing and unpredictable with a couple of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing until the very end.. This was a very enjoyable cozy mystery and a wonderful start to a new series! #NetGalley #ASideOfMurder

A Side of Murder by Amy Pershing is the debut of A Cape Code Foodie Mystery series. Samantha “Sam” Barnes is a chef who is returning home to Fair Harbor, Massachusetts. Sam’s professional and personal life in New York City derailed after a passerby posted a video on You-tube of an argument between Sam and her fiery tempered husband. When she learns she has inherited her Great-Aunt Ida’s home, Sam decides to head back to Cape Code temporarily. She gets a job at the Cape Cod Clarion writing restaurant reviews and food features. Her first assignment takes Sam and her friends to the Bayview Grille. After dinner, Sam takes a walk outside where she finds Estelle Kobolt dead in the water. The death is ruled accidental, but Sam’s instinct tells her it is murder. Sam decides to do a little digging on her own to see who wished Estelle dead. A Side of Murder is easy to read with mixed pacing. The author took the time to establish the setting of Fair Harbor in Cape Code. There are beautiful descriptions of the beach plus detailed word images of the food, Great-Aunt Ida’s house, and Diogi. We get to meet Sam’s childhood friends, Miles and Jenny along with the editor-in-chief of the Cape Cod Clarion, Krista Baker and Sam’s neighbor, Helene Greenberg. The mystery was straightforward with a couple of suspects, misdirection, and subtle clues. I would have liked more time devoted to the mystery and for it to be more complex. The whodunit is focused on more in the latter half of the book. My favorite phrase from A Side of Murder is, “Danger Will Robinson” when Krista charms Sam into taking the job at the paper. There is romance for Sam in the form of an old crush. They are attracted to each other and there is chemistry between them. A Side of Murder is a breezy cozy mystery with fine food, a cute canine, an insistent editor-in-chief, fun friends, a gone guzzler, a hunky harbormaster, and a beautiful beach.

Food, seafood and water!

Witty, enjoyable read like a cozy mystery book should read. Characters who make you laugh, you find relatable and enjoy their story make it that much more enjoyable. This series doesn’t disappoint.

I do love a cozy where the victim is one that most people would have cheerfully pushed in front of bus. Estelle Kobolt is one of those victims. When Estelle's body is found floating outside a local restaurant no one is particularly sad about it. Same Barnes is back in town after a particularly mortifying career and personal life meltdown and happens to stumble on the body and gets pulled into the investigation right from the start.

The setting plays a huge part in the book. A book set in a small coastal town isn't unusual in cozy mysteries but in this book Cape Cod is pretty much a character and I could all but smell the salt. As well Sam's career and training as a chef aren't simply window dressing. She knows her craft and spends quite a lot of time thinking or talking (and in some cases writing) about food and knows her stuff. If you expect your books to be all mystery all the time you might find this a bit frustrating. However, if you love a cozy with a good setup you will be a happy reader. The mystery was enjoyable and did keep me guessing and engaged even if it wasn't front and center on every page.

What kept me from absolutely loving this book was that I just didn't connect with Sam. She can be very wishy washy and judgmental. She lets people push her around a bit and struggles to make decisions on her own and her dismissive attitude towards her friend Jenny set my teeth on edge a time or two. There was also a heavy use of foreshadowing language (ie "If she had only known" "we didn't notice then that it was gone") which also got a bit old. Still, this book was a fun read and I think this is a series with a lot of potential.

New York chef Samantha Barnes is an unintentional YouTube star, thanks to an argument that got way out of hand (giving a whole new meaning to 'flipping the finger'). She needs to get out of town for while, and as luck would have it, she's just inherited her Aunt Ida's run-down house on Cape Cod and the biggest puppy in town, punfully named Diogi. She's also been handed the tasty job of writing restaurant reviews for the Cape Cod Clarion. What, as they say, could possibly go wrong? But when Sam discovers the body of a locally-infamous retired waitress floating just outside the Bayview Grill, the plot thickens faster than cornstarch in gravy.

Author Amy Pershing combines foodie fun with small town life in a boiling pot of intrigue. A Side of Murder is peppered with eccentric locals, quirky-fun friends—and teenage Sam's romantic crush, now all grown up.

I will admit that after a year of living in Covid-induced isolation, I enjoyed living vicariously through Sam and her friends. I envied her intimate dinner parties, warm hugs and other instances of meaningful (and sometimes malevolent!) human contact.

The plot certainly has a lots of twists and turns, and there's plenty of action, both on land and sea. The author hasn't scrimped on descriptive prose either—If I could walk into this little Cap Cod community for real, everything would seem familiar. The story is told from a Sam-centric point of view, unfolding through her eyes and mind. We are eavesdroppers on her hopes, fears, memories, emotions, and thought-processes.

This first venture into what will become the Cape Cod Foodie Mystery Series will appeal to anyone who's in touch with their inner Nancy Drew—and Julia Child. I enjoyed the little cooking tips sprinkled throughout the story, and I know I'll be trying the recipe for Beach Shack Onion Rings, one of three recipes enjoyed by characters in the story and included for the readers. I'll serve them with a good bottle of chardonnay, of course.

Thank you to author Amy Pershing, NetGalley, and Berkley Publishing Group for allowing me to read a digital advance review copy of this book. This review is my honest and unbiased opinion.

A decade ago, Sam left Cape Cod for New York City, working toward her dream of owning a restaurant in the big city – until she unwittingly stars in a viral video that she fears has ruined her chances. When she inherits a house on the Cape, she figures Aunt Ida's house, as run-down as it is – will be a good place to regroup while she licks her wounds. She lands a temporary job writing restaurant reviews and things seem to be looking up. But when she finds a body while on her first assignment, she isn't convinced that it was an accidental death and decides to look into things herself.

This is the first book in a new series by a debut author, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I needn't have worried! The book did not suffer from so many of the problems common in many of the first-in-series books I've read, which was a refreshing change of pace. The characters in the story are well-drawn and (most of them) seem like people I would want to spend time with. It will be fun watching relationships and circumstances change and develop as the series progresses. I grew up in a small community, so I know what it's like to have everyone know what's going on to/with everyone else, and how rumors can spring up in no time at all. I would love to live on the water, but would have to learn a whole lot more about tides and currents if I did :) The mystery was good, with quite a few potential suspects. I was sure I knew who the guilty party was, though – and I couldn't have been more wrong! I look forward to reading the next book in this series

First I would like to thank NetGalley and Berkley Books for allowing me to read an advanced digital copy

A great addition to the mystery genre....I loved every page of the book. I didn't want it to end.
Set in Cape Cod it would be hard for you to guess that it has a culinary flare with recipes at the end.
The first book in the series and I can't wait to read the second one....which I see the author has planned the next one.
The characters are lovable and the storyline flowed right to the end.
I'm not one to give away a story so I will leave that to other reviewers. You can read the synopsis on the book to see if it is something you would like but trust me when I say this that it is extremely well written and it has a few surprises that will shock you.
A Side of Murder was excellent and I highly recommend!

This was a fine start to a new series. There was definitely an excess of foreshadowing, and the main character struck me as pretty prickly at first (not my favorite trait in a cozy character), but she grew on me. The community around her was entertaining, and I really enjoyed the romance element between main character Samantha and her onetime teenage crush, harbor master Jason. There was a lot of potential here, and I enjoyed the Cape Cod setting, so I will definitely continue onto the next book when it comes!

What I Liked:

The Cast of Characters. Sam (best name ever, obviously) is a plucky, good food eating, wine drinking, loud laughing chef who stands out in every crowd. Her friends are tight knit and loving, all with their own quirks and life paths. I especially love Miles, the sassy gay organic farmer farmer who does random acts of kindness, and Sam’s quirky older neighbor Helene who offers comfort, wisdom, and wine, whichever is called for. Helene and Diogi the dog (D-O-G) may be my favorite sidekick-dog pairing, and they save Sam’s bacon on more than one occasion. I love that none of the characters veer into trope territory, and each have a strong individual presence.

The Cape Cod Setting. A great cozy always has a very strong sense of setting, and A Side of Murder is no exception. Cape Cod is clearly a gorgeous place – I live a little further down the coast on Long Island, so I am intimately familiar with beach life. What I was not familiar with, and now am very intrigued by, is the very cool coves, lakes, and marshes in the Cape Cod area. Sam and her beau Jason are avid boaters, and we got to see a whole bunch of scenes on the bay and in the marshes. I loved that part of the mystery is an evil developer that ignores environmental impacts (this is something that happens WAY too often by me also), and Pershing’s description of the winter versus summer crowd. This definitely makes me want to explore Cape Cod off season.

The Mystery. To be honest, often the murder feels sort of ancillary to a lot of cozies. Not here. Pershing never lets you forget that A Side of Murder is foremost about a murder, with great characters putting their heads together to solve it. The murder victim Estelle is disliked by basically everyone in town, so there is no lack of suspects. I didn’t guess the murderer until the end (though the reveal had its own problems), and there was a lot going on to keep you guessing.

What I Wasn’t Thrilled With:

The Foreshadowing. This is a personal gripe, and other readers may not mind as much, but I am not normally a fan of heavy foreshadowing. A Side of Murder was replete with it. Since it is Sam narrating in the past tense, she makes way more references to what she would have done or felt “if only she’d known” that a future event was going to happen. This foreshadowing began quick, within the first chapter, and it remained annoying throughout the first half of the book.

The Lowkey Ageism. It is a shame that this was evident, because generally Amy Pershing writes really rich and non-stereotypical characters. However, every single one of the characters over the age of 50 were luddites to the point of being ignorant. Not only is this insulting to older people, it also just true. My 70 year old dad regularly schools me in tech knowledge. So seeing the otherwise brilliant and sophisticated Helene, or Sam’s parents who are both sharpshooting journalists all seem unable to handle a cell phone or questioning what “the Youtube” is just felt ingenuine and an easy mark.

The Culinary “Asides.” I am a fan of cooking being a part of cozies, as long as it is subtle – setting in a restaurant, or great food descriptions incorporated into the narrative. However, Sam’s constant “tips and tricks” on cooking that are peppered into her stream of consciousness, some with essentially no context, was jarring and not helpful to the plot. It kept taking me out of the story, which is a shame because I did like the fact that Sam is a chef., just didn’t need every single one of her helpful chef tips in the midst of a thrilling murder investigation.

I had some trouble getting into this mystery, as I felt it was jumping all over the place at first. There was no need for asides about cooking tips, this was very annoying. We get that the protagonist is a chef, but this is not a cookbook. Recipes after the story work just fine. Sometimes her thoughts came off as juvenile, but otherwise the dialogue was fairly solid.
As the book moved on, the author seemed to find her rhythm and the plot felt more like a mystery. There are a good cast of characters, some romance (that moved fast) and a good twisty mystery. This series has promise.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a digital ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. This review can also be found on my Goodreads page.

This is the first in the Cape Cod Foodie Mystery series. Samantha Barnes is in New York feeling sorry for herself as her marriage ended (which is not a bad thing) and her Chef career is a bust because of a you tube video which has gone viral with her ex-husband. Sam receives a phone call from her best friend Jenny’s husband Roland who is lawyer in Cape Cod and he tells her that she has inherited her Aunt Ida’s house. Sam thinks this is a great time to take a break from New York and lay low in Cape Cod for a few weeks and sell her Aunt’s house while she tries to get a new job back in the city. Her friends Jenny and Miles pick her up at the airport and drive her to her new home where she meets her Aunt’s neighbor Helene (who is the town Librarian) and learns she also inherited a puppy named Diogi. The editor of the local paper and her friend Krista calls and asks her to fill in at the paper and write lifestyle and food stories. Sam takes along Helene, Miles and Jenny and they have a great dinner at the new Bayview Grill which is the former Logan Inn that Sam worked at one summer when she was a teenager. Sam decides to take a walk and is remembering a time from ten years ago when she had a huge crush on the bartender Jason and Estelle one of the other waitresses interrupts her first kiss with Jason. Just as she is thinking about this she sees a body floating in the water and it is none other than Estelle. Sam goes in the water and confirms she is dead and then freaks out. She gets out of the water runs back into the restaurant and the Harbormaster is called. Sam is shocked to learn that the Harbormaster is none other than her teenage crush Jason who is all business with her. This was a good solid mystery with great characters that is a quick read. I read this is less than one day and I cannot wait for the next installment

I love cozy mysteries but unfortunately this one was a miss for me and I ended up not finishing it. I loved the premise. It the layout of the book just made it hard for me to read or follow. I’m hoping this is just the advanced copy and that the published format is better.

After the first chapter, I knew that I should have put this book down, but against my better judgment, I continued. From restaurant guide, to a dead body, to a travelogue of the Cape, back to the dead body, to unrequited love, maybe touching on the body again, to a sailing lesson, to a restaurant critique, maybe the body again, then a hodge-podge of who the killer might be, to possibly other killers, to crushing on the Harbormaster, then finally tying up to the book but realizing that there was more to tell, which wasn’t as focused as it might have been because the last 20% may well have ended at any time, yet continued on and on with proverbial rabbits being pulled out of the hat.

This first in a series book could have been further fine-tuned without so many tangents and unnecessary fluff. If you are going to tell a mystery, tell a mystery. If you are going to write about travel, with restaurant reviews and the sailing tips, write that book, but meshing the two genres together, at the depth they were, didn’t work for me.

This was a really fun cozy mystery. I loved the setting of Cape cod and the descriptions of the area. I thought the mystery was well done and kept me guessing, there were also a couple of well done twists I didn't see coming. There were a couple of clichés in there but nothing that distracted me from the story. I enjoyed the main characters and all of the side characters and felt they were well done. I hope that house renovations are in the future because I love those storylines in cozy mysteries. There was one part involving the dog that I found to be nearly unbelievable but other than that I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next book!

Who killed Estelle Kobolt! Estelle was a piece of work. Nobody liked her, and anybody could have done her in. But when Samantha Barnes finds her face up, obviously drowned, she is sure it is murder. Even though her death is listed as accidental.

Sam, taking a break from the food scene, as she wields a knife against her ex goes viral on YouTube, finds refuge in the house her great aunt Ida left to her on the Cape. And ends up writing restaurant reviews for the Cape Cod Clarion.

Samantha narrates the book, and with the witty dialogue you can't help but get wrapped up in all the characters. There were a lot of twists and turns, which kept my interest. This is a cozy mystery, fast paced and fun. A real page turner. And you will never guess who the murderer is until the very end. This is Amy Pershing's debut novel, and I think she did a great job with the setting, characters and dialogue. I'm already looking forward to the next book in the series.

I received a complimentary ebook copy from the publisher, through Net Galley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

3.75 stars

Samantha Barnes, trained chef, has returned to her Cape Cod roots after a failed marriage and a lost job. She has inherited an old house from an aunt, and originally plans to just go long enough to fix up and dispose of it and think about her next chapter.

But being back feels better than expected. An old high school friend offers her a temporary job as a restaurant reviewer and Sam starts to get settled. She has baggage from her past, an unrequited crush on the man who is currently the Harbor Patrol chief.

But all that goes out the window when she discovers a dead body one night under the dock. She knew the woman and doesn't believe that this was a natural death. Sam is determined to investigate despite the fact that the local police don't believe it was murder.

Nice local setting, a few plot twists, and a good ensemble cast of friends. Thanks to the publisher and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The main character, Samantha Barnes, suffers a fall from grace. After losing everything she built for herself in New York City, she returns to her childhood home of Cape Cod, Mass. with her proverbial tail between her legs. Waiting for her there are her old friends, an old house, and an old flame, along with a new neighbor, a new job, and a new dog. While Sam tries to put her feet back under her, she makes an unsettling discovery - the body of an old nemesis.

There were several points in the story where I felt like I had things figured out, there are several times where Sam and Jason, old flame and harbormaster, think they've solved the crime, but we were all wrong. There are so many twists and turns, this book keeps you guessing up to the very end. The trajectory of the story is a bit different from the standard cozy, a bit more action-packed. Of course the setting, Cape Cod, was wonderful and the characters were all authentic and appealing.

I'm very much looking forward to reading the next in this series!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

Sometimes books attemot to be modern, and fail in their attempt to be timely. Not the case with this book! Everyone seems to get their 15 minutes of fame.infamy nowadays via ivideo, don't they? For Sam, it was the end of a fast riding career, or so she thinks. Putting her cooking expertise into restaurant reviews seems like the handout it is, but it gets her back around food, and that she loves. Course she isn't expecting murder along with her food. Together with her old friends, she is in the middle of a murder case and the more she seems to be pulling herself away from her prior infamy, the more she seems in hot water! A fun quick read, you'l enjoy this book, and its recipes.

In this well-written, fast-paced, and action-packed drama, I was completely immersed in that was happening. From meeting the eclectic cast of characters that includes Sam, Miles, Jennie, Jason, Krista, Helene and Diogi. The author did a great job in setting this mystery up with intrigue, suspense and some humor which help set the tone for how well this story was being told. The suspect pool was plentiful, and I liked how clues were planted throughout that kept me engrossed in every detail. It was fun following along with what the author intended and when I thought I had a handle on the who, what, where and why, the author changed directions which increased my appreciation of where this tale was headed. There were a few surprises along the way that enhanced my reading pleasure and I relished seeing the outcome of this delightfully engaging series. When all said and done, this was a terrific and fun book to read and I can’t wait to see what Sam and her friends encounter on their next adventure.

I was pulled to this book because of the cover. How could you resist a cozy with a dog that cute? The book didn't disappoint. I've really missed traveling lately, and it was fun to spend time "near the seaside" (if only in imagination) with this mystery.