This is the third in the Georgia B&B mystery series by Anna Gerard. I enjoy the interactions between Harry and Nina. As I was reading this book, I was surprised at the reveals. There is plenty happening from relationships to murder. This kept me turning the pages to see what would change next.

I’m routing for Harry and Nina to find a comfortable relationship. It was a nice touch not to dwell heavily on the bed and breakfast aspect of Nina’s business. Gus was a big love muffin once he adjusted to others.
This can be read as a standalone but you’d miss out the developing nuances of each character.
Great read. Looking forward to the next installment.

I was given an ARC e-book copy from Netgalley. I am not required to leave a positive review.

This is the third in the series but can be read as a stand alone. The stories and characters just keep getting better and that says something, as I thought the first two were great. Great characters, great settings, fast paced and funny. What more could you want in a cozy?

Peaches And Schemes is the third book in the Georgia B&B Mystery series by Anna Gerard.

Nina Fleet’s B&B is doing well, but when she learns that a Bridal Expo is to be held in Cymbeline and she decides to get a booth at the show. Nina hopes to be able to secure some weddings to be held in her garden. While setting up her booth, she is surprised to see her on-and-off tenant, Harry Wescott, has a booth for his Plus One business. Harry’s great-aunt had owned the Queen Anne Victorian home until her death. Harry has been rooming in the tower room where he stayed while visiting his great-aunt during summers.

It is time to unveil the final wedding dress, and a sizeable cake-like display is rolled out. When the cake is opened, there is the lifeless body of Roxanna, co-producer of the expo, is found. Roxanna has been strangled by the scarf she was wearing. Roxanna and Virgie have a business partnership, where Roxanna handles event planning, and Virgie owns a bridal dress shop. The police learn of a heated argument where Virgie accuses Roxanna of embezzling money from the business, and Virgie will become the police’s prime suspect.

Nina and Roxanna had become friends a couple of months earlier, and both being dog lovers, they had had playdates for their dogs. Nina gets permission from the police to go to Roxanna’s home and pick up her dog, Gustopher and foster him until someone from Roxanna’s family can get him. While she is there searching for the dog’s food and treats, she finds what the argument had been about, and for safekeeping, she takes it home. When she arrives home, she discusses what had been found with Harry, and they decide that she needs to return it.

Nina doesn’t feel that Virgie can be a murderer, or is she physically able to strangle Roxanna, so Nina and Harry set off to find the murderer. Before long, Nina senses that a stalker is following her, and when a hit-and-run driver nearly kills her, she’s sure she might be close to finding the killer.

This book is a well-written and plotted story with an exciting and believable cast of characters. There were plenty of twists and turns that I was kept guessing until the end.

I will be watching for the next book in this series.

A big goofy dog, a wedding expo, two hot romantic opportunities, and a murder to solve! What’s not to love about Peaches and Schemes?

Nina is back running her Georgia B&B in the third book in her series. This time the focus is on the many enemies, and ex-husbands, of Roxanna. The same Roxanna who was heard being threatened by multiple people during the wedding expo. The same Roxanna whose dead body just spilled out from within a cake prop during the finale of the expo’s fashion show.

Roxanna’s murderer was easy to spot, though not necessarily the motive, making this book a relaxing read. There are more alleged crimes within this tale to solve too. However, the romance between Nina and both Harry and Ryan is excellent and the best thing about Peaches and Schemes.

If you like your cozy mysteries with some romantic tension, you should pick up this book. 4 stars!

Thanks to Crooked Lane Books, Great Escapes Book Tour, and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I like this series; I like that it is set in a B&B setting, I like the supporting characters [especially Harry, who has a certain snark that is extremely appealing to me] and for the most part, the mysteries and story-line are really good and well-written.

That said, this book is not the strongest in the series. I knew who the killer was soon after the murder happened [and kept trying to talk myself out of it, but just *KNEW* it had to be this person], there was very little of the supporting cast [who really help to make these books as good as they are], and Nina [NINE-AH. And don't you forget it. Though if you do, she'll remind you. Again, and again, and again] does some really STUPID things that no one who is as smart as she is and who runs a successful business would do. Even stupider than most MC's in cozies do. And the reveal/end, though it sets it up for another book [without a cliff-hanger and which I will read because I DO really like these characters], felt rather flat and anticlimactic for me. Perhaps it was because I knew who the killer was so there was little surprise for me. I don't know. It was just a little meh for me.

All that said, I will keep reading this series and I would recommend it to my cozy reading friends.

Thank you to NetGalley, Anna Gerard, and Crooked Lane Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

PEACHES AND SCHEMES by Anna Gerard
The Third Georgia B&B Mystery

While not a fan of weddings, Nina Fleet is a fan of business success. So when her new friend Roxanna suggests she get a booth at the Veils and Vanities trade show, she agrees. Her B&B is a lovely Queen Anne with a gorgeous garden, so promoting Fleet House as an ideal wedding venue makes sense. As surprised as she is to see her frenemy, Harry, hawking his new business venture, she's even more surprised when he tells her of her ex-husband's upcoming nuptials. But that's nothing compared to the shock when, instead of a cascade of flowers, a body falls out of the huge prop wedding cake!

PEACHES AND SCHEMES is both hysterically funny and genuinely moving. There's a complicated mystery, a motherless dog, and intriguing development in Nina and Harry's relationship.

I love just about everything in this series, and the third Georgia B&B Mystery confirms that fact. Nina is smart, strong, yet still vulnerable. Harry is charming, annoying, and leading man material in oh so many ways. The mystery here is complex leading to some surprise suspects and a shocking penultimate scene.

PEACHES AND SCHEMES is a delightful mystery that had me laughing, commiserating, and gasping in shock. Its characters have wormed their way into my heart and I feel their pain as well as their joy. I was in stunned sadness at the end of the novel, which changed to hope, leaving me on the edge of my seat waiting for the next entry in this fantastic series.

Nina Fleet is doing well with her B&B, Fleet House but, to boost her business she takes advice from her new friend, Roxanna and signs up to have a booth at the wedding expo that is held twice a year. With brochures, albums showing off photos of Fleet House as a wedding venue, etc. Nina is glad she came. For awhile, that is. Within a ver short period of time she is witness to a couple of very heated arguments between the woman running the event, Virgie and two other people. Each encounter pits Virgie with a person she has business ties to and it gets ugly. Money has a way of turning people against each other but who among Virgie's connections killed Roxanna? Nina is certain that, despite Virgie's abrasive persona, she isn't the killer. Nina soon discovers that there was a whole other side to Roxanne's life and boy, does that make for a list of suspects.
Dealing with her B&B and getting involved with a homicide investigation to clear Virgie is a lot to juggle but there's more to come. Her ex-husband getting remarried is one and then there's the situation with her temporary boarder, Harry, an out of work actor who resides in the tower room on a supposed 30 day deal.....to be renegotiated.
Nina is a great character and the mysteries are good complex puzzles that hold your interest very well. But her Aussie shepherd Mattie is my favorite character of all due to the fact that she's a blue merle with one blue eye and one brown eye. I have a blue merle Aussie with two ice blue eyes in my life and it's just that extra touch that adds to the list of reasons why this is one of my favorite mystery series. It works as a stand alone but, if you enjoy this one as much as I did, be ready to play catchup on the previous two books.
My thanks to the publisher Crooked Lane and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I have to say that Cymbeline Georgia is growing on me with every book in this series – but I still miss the nuns from Peach Clobbered. They were definitely something special and I’m still hoping for a return visit.

Even if the homicide rate is approaching that of Cabot Cove, Maine.

The murder that kicks of this particular installment of “as the bodies drop” takes place in a scene that is often fraught with high drama – even if in this case the drama inducement is a bit of by proxy.

I’m referring to weddings. Tensions often run high at weddings, whether on the part of the couple getting married, their respective families, the audience, or all of the above. The stakes feel so high and so many people want to get everything perfect on this special day. But there are plenty of ways that things can go wrong, and so many people are so stressed that its easy for even the littlest things to get blown out of proportion.

The wedding business, therefore, is a business of high stakes and high drama. So it’s not all that surprising that Nina Fleet, owner of the Fleet House Bed and Breakfast, hears not one but two threatening “conversations” between one of the organizers of the local wedding convention and various participants in the event said organizer organized.

But the stakes get higher when the corpse of one of the participants in those conversations spills out of a fake cake at the end of the bridal fashion show in front of an audience expecting to see the latest in bridal creations and not the town’s most recent corpse.

Nina can’t help getting involved this time – not that ever can. The victim was a close friend, while the suspected murderer – as argumentative as the woman ALWAYS is – just plain didn’t have the physical strength to strangle someone with their own scarf. Especially considering that the scarf tripped her Trypophobia.

The cops aren’t quite ready to believe they’ve got it wrong – but someone sure thinks that Nina is on the right track – and keeps trying to run her over with their car to prove it. The question is who – along with why. And how many “shots” at Nina will they get to take before Nina finally puts the pieces together.

Escape Rating B+: Part of the charm of this series – and it certainly is charming – is in the cast of characters and the setting the author has created to contain them and their murderous ways.

Well, not their murderous ways exactly. So far, at least, when Nina puts on her “Secret Squirrel” hat and starts looking into something she has no business investigating, both the victim and the murderer inevitably turn out to be people who are new in town – or new back in town. Nina and her cast of friends and regulars may occasionally be suspects but they’re never the guilty party.

And that’s the way it should be in a cozy mystery series.

But there’s one continuing character in this series who, while not generally a murder suspect, is usually suspected of being up to something, and this entry in the series is no exception.

Nina Fleet and Harry Westcott have been the best of frenemies since Peach Clobbered, when Harry rode into town on a tour bus dressed as Harvey, the 6’ tall white rabbit, claiming that he was the true owner of the home that Nina had just converted into a B&B. Harry is now living at Fleet House, in the high turret he used to occupy when his great-aunt owned the place. Nina and Harry aren’t exactly friends, aren’t exactly enemies, and certainly aren’t lovers, but they have come to rely on and depend upon each other in a way that makes both of them more than a bit uneasy.

They care about each other but they don’t exactly trust each other. They can’t resist sniping at each other about their true motivations for continuing to look out for each other. Neither of them is ready for any kind of a relationship and neither of them is quite willing to let go.

So they end up as partners in crime and the solving of it more often than not. I hope the resolution of whatever they are going to be to each other takes a long time because it’s fun to watch them spark and snipe.

Reading Nina’s latest adventure, I also can’t help but think that Nina Fleet and Charlie Harris, the increasingly less amateur detective of the Cat in the Stacks series, would get along like a house on fire, comparing notes on how they each got into being amateur detectives in their small Southern towns, and just how often they’ve each promised local law enforcement to keep their inquisitive noses out of police business – only to break that promise as soon as the case starts to hit too close to home. As small as both Cymbeline GA and Athena MS are, it’s all too easy for that to happen in blink of an eye.

As it does in Peaches and Schemes, much to my reading enjoyment. I had a great time visiting Cymbeline again and I’m looking forward to Nina’s next case. But I still miss those nuns!

This third installment of the Georgia B&B mysteries has Nina Fleet hosting a booth at a Bridal Expo hoping to get brides to select her B&B for their venue. She is making friends with other vendors and when the final event, a wedding gown fashion show, ends with a vendor falling of a large wedding cake prop strangled to death, Nina realizes that it's one of her new friends. She had heard her arguing with her partner earlier and feels that she needs to relay this information to the police. They don't seem to be interested in the info that she has so Nina vows to find out who killed her friend.

It was entertaining, because of the interaction of the characters but the mystery wasn't that hard to solve. Maybe a bit more attention to the mystery and a little less to the humorous antics of her resident nemesis.

Weddings are happy events but the planning and activities leading up to a wedding can be stressful and take a toll. Starting and expanding a business is also stressful. Nina (pronounced Nine-ah) Fleet finds herself contemplating both. To make her B&B business flourish, she signs up for a Wedding Expo and gets to know others involved in the wedding businesses, florists, gowns, catering, etc.

Her temporary roommate, Harry, also seems to have gotten the "wedding bug," as he has created his own version of a wedding (and more) service. As a result, they are both in the audience to a surprise death. Accident gone terribly wrong or murder most foul?

Nina finds herself pulled further into events when she big heartedly takes charge of the deceased woman's dog, and feels responsible for a suspect's arrest. A suspect she feels in her gut is innocent.

Wonderful characters, an interesting setting, and a B&B house I'd like to visit, make this a fun cozy to read and puzzle out. With romantic elements, and misunderstood characters, past and present intertwine. Nina finds herself in danger more than once before the case is solved.

Hoping to garner some destination weddings for her B&B, owner Nina Fleet signs up to be a vendor at a Bridal Venue. Everything seems to be going well until she secretly overhears an argument between the two organizers of the event. When one of the organizers is found dead at the finale of the event, Nina needs to find out who the killer is before the wrong person is jailed. Filled with quirky characters, lovable dogs and a host of possible suspects, Peaches and Schemes by Anna Gerard is a fun, fast paced read.
Thank you Netgalley and Publisher Crooked Lane Books for an advanced copy of this book. The comments and review are my honest opinion.

This is the 3rd book in the cozy series "Georgia B&B" . Thank you to the author and Net Galley for the opportunity. My review opinion is my own.

In this next in series our protagnist has her hand full with a new gig promoting weddings at her Inn at a local Bridal expo under the suggestion of a new friend who runs the show. When her friend is murdered all clues point to her business partner but Nina suspects he is innocent as she investigates. She adopts the dead women's dog and begins to look in the victims background which proves to bring additional suspects to the surface. When the original suspect disappears Nina has to continue to try to prove his innocence and find the rightful suspect.

This was such a fun sleuth . I loved the red herrings and clues that kept me guessing. The charcters are enjoyable and all add depth to the story. A fun addition to the series that I highly recommend.

Sorry, I did not get to read this book due to the date clashing with my final weeks of thesis work. Looks interesting so I will keep an eye out for the book.

Nina's just trying to increase the business for her B&B but she has no idea what's ahead at the Bridal Expo. Cymbeline might be a small town but there are big rivalries and there's a murder at the expo. Cozy readers know that Nina will be surprised at what she learns about her friend Roxanna, the victim, as she tries to exonerate Virgie, another pal who owns the bridal dress shop. Luckily her tenant Harry (he's more than that but....) is back in town to help even though he's bringing news that doesn't make Nina happy. Thanks to netgalley for the ArC. This is a fun read that will be fine as a standalone.

When her friend is found dead at a bridal expo, Nina is compelled to investigate. This was the first book I’ve read in the series and it read well as a stand-alone. I did not guess the identity of the villain before the reveal. The plot was nice and twisty, the writing skilled and the characters engaging. I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to more from this author. I received this book free and chose to make a voluntary, unbiased review.

There are several story lines that wind thru the main mystery. I really like that. The heroine is genuine and not foolish acting. I usually don't read Victorian mysteries but found this one to be delightful. I plan on reading more by this author.
Thank you for this digital copy in exchange for a honest review.
#netgalley. #crookedlanebooks
#CallieHutton #TheSignofDeath

The third book in this series, set in a B&B run by the main character, Nina Fleet. The author makes a clever move this time though and sets the murder scene at a Wedding Expo where Nina has her own stall set up as a way of trying to get into the wedding business.

The story is fast paced and even dangerous for Nina and we meet lots of interesting characters along the way. I loved the way Gus visited with Mattie for a while (Anna Gerard must be a dog lover) and the resolution for Gus's story was well done. The horrible ex husband popped in for a visit and then a possible romantic interest for Nina arose as well! All good fun.

I am looking forward to more character developments in the next book.

I really enjoy this series. Nina is a smart, sassy, older (but not old) sleuth which makes her decision making more logical. Harry's new money-making scheme adds some humor to this story and the mystery itself was intriguing. A great addition to this series.

I received a copy from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

#PeachesandSchemes #NetGalley

Peachy and Schemes by Anna Gerard is the 3rd book in the Georgia B&B Mystery series, and another great addition. Nina is 41 years old and moved to Cymbeline, GA where she bought a house, and turn it into a bed and breakfast. The towns two wedding experts, Virgie Hamilton and Roxanna Quarry, are hosting a Bridal Expo, and Nina hopes to get in on the wedding tourists. Unfortunately When Roxanna, who Nina considers a friend, is found dead, Virgie is the main suspect. Nina does not believe Virgie's guilty, so she starts sleuthing. There is so much going on in this book, I love it, along with all the quirky characters. I curious to know where Nina and Harry friendship will go, if anywhere. I can not wait to read the next book in the series. Highly recommend.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Nina Fleet owns a Georgia B&B in the small town of Cymbelline. Her constant tenant is Harry Westcott, an out-of-work actor whom she's allowed to live for free in the tower room, where he spent summers as a child when the large Queen Anne Victorian belonged to his late aunt. While her business is thriving, she figures it could always use help, and signs up to host a booth at the bridal expo, offering her B&B as a wedding destination where couples could be married in her generous garden. While there, she hears two contentious arguments: one between Virgie and a local florist, with whom she apparently has a past, and another between Virgie and her friend Roxanna Quarry, who owns an event planning business.

But when there is a gown finale, when the large cake is opened, Roxanna tumbles out, apparently strangled by the colorful scarf she was wearing. Now Virgie is the main suspect in the murder, and Nina refuses to believe she's guilty. What's worse, after she and Harry pick up Gustopher, Roxanna's orphaned dog, Nina goes to Roxanna's home the next day to return an ominous item she accidentally picked up. But when she finds the home trashed, she calls the police and now she's smack in the middle of the investigation whether she wants it or not.

Then she learns that her ex-husband is getting married again, to a woman half his age. While she doesn't love Cam anymore, the fact still sends her reeling, and to top it off, Harry discloses a long-held secret that doesn't help. Now Nina needs to find a murderer among a roomful of suspects, and put her own feelings on hold. Easy to say, but doing might be harder when things are beginning to change...

This is the third book in the series and I have to say that so far it happens to be my favorite. I enjoyed the last one quite a bit, but this book takes us a little bit more into the lives of Nina and Harry, and it explains some things about him; I've always felt that Harry is aloof, and this book gives us a hint as to his past.

When we look for the murderer, we learn more about Roxanna, and it's not nice. The persona that she showed Nina isn't the same persona she showed other people, and even though Nina finds these things out, she still wants justice for her friend.

When we finally discover the murderer and the reason for the killing, it's believable and the climax is definitely worth waiting for. Then, life for Nina can go back to normal, or maybe it won't...a delightful read, and I eagerly look forward to the next in the series. Recommended.