4.5 stars

This is the sixth book in the Cranberry Cove series by Peg Cochran.

Wow. This was a real page turner! I loved the whole experience of this. The TV personality who ends up dead and then the search to find out who did her in was quite fascinating. Loved the mystery part and the characterization was spot on! Even the secondary characters seemed to shine.

This series has really grabbed my attention in the past so I was happy to see a new mystery ready to dig into. Such a fun read and it shows how a cozy mystery should be dealt with. The red herrings were all placed well and the killer was hard to figure out which is what made it super fun!

Definitely a series I will continue with!

If you want to read a good cozy mystery, definitely 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.

I enjoyed the mystery itself but I found some of the actions Monica took while she was trying to solve the mystery to be questionable. It also doesn’t seem realistic for someone who’s running a business to take that much time away from it.

A visit to a cranberry farm at harvest time sounds magical. It was for everyone except Betsy, the star of the local news show. Betsy dies after filming at the farm. Monica gets involved as usual. There are some good suspects - Betsy’s fiancé, Bob Visser; Todd, her producer; Dan, her high school boyfriend and someone she kept a big secret from; and Heidi, Betsy’s sister.
Monica and Kit make lots of tasty cranberry treats. Monica goes off on her investigative jaunts and finds out more than just who may have killed Betsy.
Monica has a close brush with death as the killer tries to keep his secrets hidden.
Each of the suspects had pretty good motives so it was interesting to watch where the author took the story.
I really enjoyed my sixth visit to a cranberry farm in Michigan. Monica is a fun main character and Greg has blended fairly seamlessly into the action now that they are married. The supporting characters are a nice part of the series.
I think the bookmark could be read alone if you haven’t encountered the series before, but I always enjoy the story arc that comes from reading a series in order.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review the book prior to publication.

A TV spot filmed in an effort to boost business at the Sassamanash Farm ends in murder and Monica Albertson finds herself nosing around trying to get answers but instead coming up with more questions.

I liked the fact that some clues were given by the author so I could figure things out along the way but there was also enough unknown to keep me reading to the end. The interesting secondary characters were a bonus.

Thanks to NetGalley and Beyond the Page Publishing for an ARC. The opinions expressed are my own.

I think the cranberry farm was a nice change of pace. It’s the first Cozy I have read with this theme. The mystery was good with lots of twist and turns. Monica the Mc was okay. A annoying when the author has such naïve characters. Monica could have been more relatable. Overall the mystery and setting was good.
#BerriedMotives #NetGalley

Monica Albertson has her hands full with baking delicious cranberry treats her farm store, helping her brother Jeff run the cranberry farm and sleuthing. When a hotshot news anchor shows up to do a story on the farm, lives will change and some will end.

I enjoyed this book, so much that I read it in one sitting. Monica is a likable and relatable character and the setting in a cranberry farm is interesting. The book was fast-paced and kept the reader guessing. A great feature that made the book even more fun - Monica has an opportunity to solve two mysteries - one from years ago and one in present day. The supporting characters enhanced the book and I loved Kit Tanner, Monica's baking assistant who is funny, charming and a supportive friend.

I'm ready for another visit to the farm!

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Fun Read With Recipes....
The sixth Cranberry Cove mystery brings Harvest, television stars, bakery, secrets, lies and murder to the farm. Enjoyable cosy mystery with many threads, a colourful cast of characters as a likeable protagonist in Monica. A fun read with recipes included.

There is prime time trouble at the Sassamanash Farm when the local evening news anchor and show host of What's Up West Michigan, the up and coming Betsy DeJong is found dead after televising a local interest interest story about the cranberry farm and store. Monica Albertson our main character and the baker extraordinaire, just can't help herself from getting involved and asking questions. It seems that this mystery could have started years ago when Betsy's fiance and senate hopeful, Bob Visser lost his wife in a scuba mishap. Or was it a mishap... I bet you are already getting drawn into the story and you haven't even heard about the other drama involving an adoption, a confrontation, sibling rivalry, and a lost dog named Hercule. Great story with plenty of threads to follow plus some cute side bits like Hercule and of course the dessert recipes. I for one plan to make the White Chocolate Cranberry Orange Cookies and I don't even like white chocolate, but they just sound so good. So even if you don't make the cookies, be sure to grab a scone and a cup of tea before you sit down to enjoy this latest Cranberry Cover Mystery.

Fresh Brewed Murder by Emmeline Duncan was a pleasant surprise from Netgalley. This was my first book by Duncan and I really liked it. Sage runs a coffee shop, a food cart pod in Portland called Ground Rules.. Sage and Harley also are into roasting coffee and trying to make cocktails with coffee and liquors. Harley is her partner and Sage has many adventures trying to run Ground Rules and helping a young girl who has run away from home. Sage shows up to work on the third day after her opening and her door is open and a dead man is by her shop. There are many layers to this book, family trees are important. Coffee is also a big theme in the book, it makes everything better according to Sage. I haven't read a book with food carts before. It is an interesting behind the scenes of those carts we see in cities, towns, fairs and malls.

I was so excited by the previous book - the writing had really picked up and the story was just so good, that when I saw this new one, I was quick to snatch it up. Unfortunately, it was quite a bit of a disappointment to me. While the story/mystery was actually really good [It was a bit of a surprise actually as the red herring was very, very, good <spoiler>down to the fancy shoes, you are convinced it can only be the "rich" guy</spoiler>], Monica herself is the problem. She is doing two of the things that I despise in ANY book, but especially in cozies [and this two tropes keep popping up in newer books and it is something that needs to stop. People do not act like this in real life and to justify it or to normalize it is very detrimental in my opinion in an already entitled era] - she is shirking her job duties and passing it all off on others, and she is doing despicable snooping. There is snooping and then there is opening someone's backpack and reading their private papers. Monica is doing the later. And it is disturbing on many levels. She does this several times in the book and it just increased my level of unease. Then add in that she is too busy to do her job and passes the buck off to both Nora and Kit over and over, is just plain infuriating. She treats them both poorly [while claiming them as friends and to care about them - not okay in my book]. Even when she "gives Kit the day off" to pay him back from deserting him, the moment he is back, she back to her own shenanigans. And it is very off-putting.
Add in the whole "I don't know what Instagram is" [PUH-leese. Even my 73 year old non-social media mother knows what IG is. My CAT knows what IG is. That someone doesn't know what it is in a current book is an insult to the readers. If she knew what it was and didn't use it is one thing {as many people don't use social media and that is totally okay}, but to say she didn't know what it was and how it could benefit the farm and business is just ludicrous] and the mix up of names [Poor Melinda becomes Melanie and then Melinda and then Melanie etc], AND the issue with the car [I cannot even go into that, because it takes up WAY to much space], and the END [because you'd have to be blind and dumb to not have seen that coming from the beginning of the book], you have a fairly frustrating read. The ONLY thing that kept me going was the mystery [I had to see if I was right. I was not. Which was excellent] and often, that seemed like not enough to keep me going. I felt bad for my bestie during this time as I kvetched a lot over this one. I can only hope that the next one [because I like this series so much I am willing to give it one more go; I sure hope that it will be better than this one was for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Beyond the Page Publishing for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lights, Camera, Murder
The farm is being highlighted on a local news show and Monica is both nervous and excited. Nervous to be on camera and excited about what this could do for the farm and bakery. When the taping is wrapped, Monica and Jake are happy about the way thing went, until the TV host who interviewed them is found dead on the farm.

With the prime suspect being one of their employees, Monica begins asking questions trying to clear everyone from the farm and find out who truly murdered the woman. Now Monica has to avoid getting bogged down and becoming the next victim before she can finger the murderer.

An enjoyable series that covers all things cranberry and will have you looking at the recipes in the back while reading so that you can enjoy some of the goodies in the book. Recipes, well developed characters and a solid whodunit. It doesn’t get better than that!

This is a "berry" good series, and this latest offering is my favourite.
Great characters and a whodunit that kept me guessing.
I look forward to reading the next one in the series.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

Overall I like this series. I think so if the books have a better plot than others but it’s an d joys or cozy series.

In this one, a reporter is killed after doing a piece on Sassamanash Farm, the cranberry farm, Monica ends up looking into her death. Monica thinks the whole thing is suspicious so she doesn’t let the possibility of foul play go.

Monica continues to be a good protagonist. She’s smart without being over the top, even though there are definitely coincidences on how some pertinent information is discovered. But the mystery had some red herrings and even though I was able to guess the whodunit. It was still a good story. It’s a good addition to the series.

I received an advance copy of, Berried Motives, by Peg Cochran. This book was ok, i found it dull and boring and the characters were annoying.