You can’t go wrong with deputy donut book series. Great story. Great primary and secondary characters. Recommend reading the whole series

Emily has gone all out to promote her donut shop even commissioning an ice sculpture she calls Frosty the Donut for the annual Ice and Lights Festival. A huge snowstorm causes a bus crash and all the passengers need places to stay. Alas like the Christmas story all the inns are full. So the kind people of Fallingbrook take the passengers into their homes including Emily. It seems the bus driver may have been at fault for the crash, and was taken to the hospital for his injuries. He had been drinking while driving. Some time during the night he left and Emily found him underneath her beloved ice sculpture dead the next morning. Emily works to solve the crime discovering some locals had ties to the driver and her own houseguest had snuck out in the middle of the night. Could she be living with a murderer?

Starting a series at the 6th book is not always the easiest feat. Ginger Bolton makes it accessible to get invested in the lives and world of Deputy Donut, the donut shop run by the Emily Westhill in Fallingbrook, Wisconsin. During a terrible storm, a call is placed to 911 about a bus that skidded off the road and crashed. Full of families planning to attend Fallingbrook's Ice and Lights Festival it is all hands on deck for the town. It quickly becomes apparent that the driver of the bus was likely impaired. Taken to the hospital, the next morning the driver of the bus is found dead in the town square, under an ice sculpture in nothing but his hospital gown and jacket.

Although this is a fresh case, the bus driver has a history in the area - and as a result there are a number of suspects that all would want to see the bus driver dead.

Dollycas’s Thoughts

We are back in Fallingbrook, Wisconsin just before Christmas and the town is all decked out in holiday finery including the annual Ice and Light Festival and festive donuts at Deputy Donut and an ice-carved holey Frosty the Donut/Snowman. The festival is always a highlight in the area and this year a tour group from Green Bay has included it as a stop on their itinerary.

Unfortunately, a blizzard moves in and the tour bus goes off the road and crashes. The driver is badly hurt and others have minor injuries, but all the passengers are shaken up and cold and in need of a place to stay. The wonderful people of Fallingbrook open their homes to take the passengers in.

The next morning on her way to work Emily noticed their Frosty the Donut has been toppled and was shocked to find the dead frozen body of the bus driver buried under it. She knew several of the passengers were angry about the crash and even thought the driver may have been intoxicated but was someone upset enough to kill him?

Emily knows the case must be solved before the tourists head for home so she vows to help Detective Brent Fyne solve the case. Her own houseguest, Paige, the tour guide may be able to provide a lot of answers unless she is the one that left the driver out to freeze.

Emily Westhill, her cat Deputy Donut, her father-in-law and business partner Tom, Detective Brent Fyne, and his dog Ivan along with all the welcoming residents of Fallingbrook shine within these pages. They opened their homes and businesses to help a group of people they had never met and included them in their holiday events. These characters are so genuine and have developed so well over the course of this series. I love that the author has let Emily take her time dealing with her husband’s death and setting her own pace in changing her relationship with the good detective. It feels natural and makes all her relationships and interactions true to life.

The death of the bus driver shakes up the holidays and there turns out to be a surprising number of suspects. Fyne has his hands full but he really wants Emily to leave the case to him but six books in we know Emily just can’t do that. She does have a way of getting people to open up and she has keen instincts. Instincts that sometimes put her and her friends in danger. Ms. Bolton has given her character so much depth and it is a real treat to follow along with her step by step as she puts clues together and still be totally surprised when that final clue falls into place. I was just that, totally surprised when all was revealed, and I enjoyed the exciting showdown so much.

The author’s descriptive talents really take the reader right into each scene. I have endured winters in Wisconsin my entire life and she captures it perfectly. It was also very easy to envision the ice sculptures, all the happenings at Deputy Donut, the fire station, and Detective Fyne’s new cabin. A lot of fun and all the drama was painted so clearly in my mind.

With fabulous characters and a fantastic mystery Deck the Donuts is my new favorite in this series. I am not sure how I missed it when it was released. The only good thing is that now I don’t have to wait for the next book Cinnamon Twisted to be released. It is waiting impatiently on my Kindle.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. I really enjoyed reading it the plot was interesting and the characters made me want to know more about them. I highly recommend.

#DeckTheDonuts:⁣
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Deck the Donuts is a fun and perfect cozy for your holiday lineup. This is technically book six in the lineup (Deputy Donut Mystery Series), but can definitely be read as a stand-alone. I feel like I didn’t get to appreciate Em and Brent as much as I would have if I had read the previous five, but I still enjoyed them.⁣
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The first few chapters seemed pretty repetitive, but I was able to get past it. I know we were just trying to set the tone, but lots of repetition had me thinking I was reading the same thing again and got confused. ⁣
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I did like that Emily understood law enforcement workings and was able to get a pulse of what was happening in a not off the wall way. The fact her late spouse was law enforcement made it seem more.. believable that the average hometown sleuth following a hunch.⁣
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The mystery was really interesting and kind of sad, to be honest. I was a bit surprised on the motive but not the person. Lots of red herrings passed along the way, and it was an enjoyable ride.⁣
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Overall, a wonderful #CozyUpTo2022 x #MellieClaus mashup. Thank you @kensingtonbooks for the gifted copy. Deck the Donuts is out now!⁣
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QOTD: Donuts. Are you a fan? What flavor you grabbing?⁣
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#MilesOfPages #CozyMystery #Donuts

Deck the Donuts is a solid mystery. The author does a good job of giving you a number of suspects to mull over., provides enough clues, twists, and turns to keep you engaged and guessing. The author wraps the mystery up nicely, she doesn't linger nor does she drag it on like she wasn't sure how to end it. The author uses dialogue to bring her characters to life, and as we meet all of the different people in town their friendships and intimacy with each other make them feel like real people.

Deck the Donuts by Ginger Bolton is the sixth book in the Deputy Donut mystery series. I should start by saying this is one of my favorite cozy series. It is Christmas and the town of Fallingbrook finds itself playing host to a large group of tourists after a bus crash. Some of the tourists take things in stride and other publicly air their displeasure. The mystery was okay almost taking a backseat to other things. My only complaint is the romance/non-romance between Emily and Brent, but that is simply because the romance angle does not appeal to me. I read cozy mysteries for the mystery. I do enjoy this series and am anxiously awaiting the next book.

A mystery with donuts and romance, I am so here for that. I've enjoyed the series and this one makes me thrilled to be reading it. I can't wait till the next one.

Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Jeanie

enjoyed this latest offering in this Deputy Donut mystery series. The characters are three dimensional; I would almost expect to see them in any small Wisconsin town. It is heartwarming to see Tom, the retired police chief and Emily, the young widow of his detective son with a successful donut shop. It was named after Emily and her late husband’s cat, “Dep”, Deputy Donut. I love the town, the close friendships and values, the humor, and how Emily tends to get involved with crimes that happen around the lives of those she loves.

Deputy Donut is almost ready for Christmas, and Emily and Tom have gone all out to bring festive holidays to their customers. Fallingbrook is looking a lot like Christmas with the Ice and Lights Festival, which includes many ice sculptures and twinkling lights. Frosty the Donut, at about 7’, is Emily and Tom’s contribution to the festival.

Emily has spent the day with Brent, a detective and her late husband’s partner and best friend. It has been seven years since Alec was killed on the job, and she and Brent have become close friends. For the first time, she is interested in him as more than a friend. They have been out skiing. They have gotten together frequently in the past four years as friends for various sporty activities. He was getting ready to give her a tour of the home he just purchased until he is called to work. A tour bus landed in a ditch. As a former 911 dispatcher, Emily has kept up her first aid training, and follows Brent to the scene to help.

The bus reeks of alcohol, and Travis, the driver, isn’t looking very good. The tour guide, Paige, is trying to help Travis stay in his seat. All the passengers except the children are still buckled in their seats. Snow is falling, and there are at least a couple people with injuries necessitating an ambulance trip to the hospital. The folks of Fallingbrook have come together to help. Tom’s wife secured meals for them and homes that can take them in until arrangements can be made to get them home. Emily took Paige home and put her in touch with the hospital to find out when Travis, her boyfriend, can be released.

Emily gave Paige directions to the hospital to visit or pick up Travis the next day. Enough snow has fallen that the only safe way to go anywhere is by four-wheel-drive or cross-country skis. During the night, Emily heard Paige leave, and return more than an hour later. Emily set out for work on her skis and took a slight detour to the park to see how Frosty the Donut looks with the lights set up. There is one little problem. Frosty is gone. Where could a 7’ ice sculpture go?

She can see a pile of snow and finally found the base of the sculpture with scrapes and dents on it. More piles of snow are nearby that might be covering the ice donuts if someone were to have lost control of their vehicle and knocked Frosty over. She pushed away enough snow with the broom she had with her. Underneath the giant donuts is a bare, human foot. She called Brent, still at the station, and men from the nearby fire station ran over. It is Travis, the bus driver, barefoot, wearing only a hospital gown, dead.

The author paints each character vividly yet realistically. Emily is my favorite, and getting to know Olivia, their full-time assistant, was delightful. I can picture Jocelyn, home on break from college, always being in motion, a gymnast dropping into cartwheels wherever she happens to be. Suspects seemed to have sinister aspects as noted in furtive – or not so furtive, conversations.

Plot twists either uncover more people who had motive to kill Travis or proves why they couldn’t have done it. The story kept me guessing throughout, and I was only a couple sentences – literally – ahead of Emily in figuring out who the bad guy was and why. There were many incredibly intense moments as they tried to escape the killer; there was no way I could put the book down! The end was very satisfying, and I am already looking forward to the next cozy mystery in the series. I highly recommend it, and the other books in the series.

Let me start out saying I haven’t read all the books or even in order and I had no problems following the story. The characters are likable, interesting, and smart. The setting of the donut shop and ice sculpture festival lends great to this Christmas themed cozy. The mystery is well-plotted, it moves at a smooth steady pace with plenty of misdirection along the way to the big reveal. I recommend this book to anyone who love cozy mysteries and holiday themed mysteries.

All thoughts and opinions are my own, and in no way have I been influenced by anyone.

This is the 6th installment in the Deputy Donut Shop mystery series. Emily Westhill is a widow who co-own the Deputy Donut shop with her Father-in-law Tom and she has been battling feelings for her husbands ex-partner and friend Brent. As Christmas is close in Fallingbrook Wisconisin Emily's feelings have been growing stronger for Brent and she is not sure she is ready to move on. Emily and Brent are skilling at Brent's new house when he gets an emergency call about a tour bus that has gone off the road and it is beginning to snow. They both arrive on the scene and the driver Travis is injured and his girlfriend tour guide is standing guard over him and both smell of alcohol and there is a busload of angry guests. The town of Fallingbrook orgranizes families to take the guests into their homes until they can get home as the winter storm is dumping snow and closing everything down. Emily takes the tour guide and bus driver's girlfriend Paige to her house to spend the night. Emily suspects something is off with Paige but she is so upset about Travis all she wants to do is go to the hospital however, the roads are terrible and Emily suggests she check on him in the morning with her skis. Emily hears Paige leave during the night but comes back quickly thereafter and when Emily skis to open Deputy Donuts she skis by the ice festival sculpture in honor of Dep Donut and is shocked to find it topped over and on the body of a man in a hospital gown. She calls the police and Travis is found dead and time of death is suspiciously when Paige left her house. Paige becomes a suspect but Emily does not believe she is the culprit. Of course she does some investigating which also takes her mind off her romantic feelings for Brent. This was a good solid mystery and so nice to see how the town came to together to make the tour guests feel at home during the Christmas season and a great ending with someone I did not expect. Really enjoy this series and looking forward to the next installment.

Emily Westhill is part owner, along with her father-in-law, of Deputy Donut, Fallingbrook, Wisconsin’s best loved donut shop. Although Emily’s been widowed for several years, she’s still family to her in laws.

Christmas is almost here. Snow is predicted, the ice sculptures are in the square lit by Christmas lights, the tree is up, and gifts almost bought. Emily’s been spending a lot of time with Brett, a police detective and her husband’s former partner. He’s been a good friend, but now she thinks, he might just be more than that.

She and Brett enjoyed an afternoon skiing, but now the snow is starting to come down. Time to get home before they’re stranded. Before they can leave, Brett is called to assist at a wreck. A tour bus full of families went off the road. The driver is taken to the hospital, one woman has a broken arm, but all the rest need a place to stay. Townspeople divide them up and provide food and lodging.

One of the sculptures is Frosty the Donut. Emily stops by to brush the night’s snow off Frosty before opening the donut shop, only to find Frosty is more like Humpty Dumpty and has fallen over during the night. And under Frosty is a very dead body.

Can Brett, with Emily’s help, solve the mystery before Santa comes down the chimney?

This is book six in the series. The relationship Emily has with her co-workers and Tom and Cindy, her in-laws, is enviable. Her emerging romance and the hesitation that goes with it shows a willingness to take a risk. Emily isn’t one to take risks that put her in danger though. She asks questions of neighbors but doesn’t confront suspects. She’s careful and aware. She’s someone you’d like for a friend, and besides that, she makes donuts. She’s shared two recipes at the back of the book: Gingerbread Donuts and Chocolate-Orange donuts with a glaze in the same flavor.

Deck the Donuts is the 6th book in this cozy mystery series. I've loved all the books in the series so far and I love this one as well. The main character, Emily, continues to grow on a personal level and the changes are very welcome. She's finally gotten to a place where she can see a romantic future with her long-time friend, Brent. This is something I've been waiting for ever since I read the first book. As for the murder mystery, it was very well-crafted even though there were quite a few red herrings for the reader to suspect. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, especially after the way this one ended.

Beyond a Reasonable Donut and Deck the Donuts by Ginger Bolton are the fifth and sixth books in the cozy Deputy Donut Mystery series. As with most cozy mystery series each book of this series can be enjoyed as a standalone or in any order with the mystery being completely solved within each book. Of course there is some character building that carries over from book to book for those that follow the series from the beginning.

In the first book of this series we met Emily Westhill who co-owns the Deputy Donut donut shop named after her tabby cat in small-town Fallingbrook, Wisconsin. Emily used to work as a 911 dispatcher until the day her husband who was a police officer was killed so now she and her retired police chief father-in-law sell donuts at their shop instead. Although Emily thought opening a donut shop would be safe she keeps finding herself mixed up in solving murders.

In Beyond a Reasonable Donut Emily is excited to participate in the Faker’s Dozen Carnival where she and her assistant Nina have a Deputy Donut tent set up. Who knew there would be so much bad luck at a carnival celebrating bad luck but when a mime is found murdered and Nina is a suspect Emily jumps in to find the real killer. Then in Deck the Donuts again Emily has to chase down another murderer when at the annual Ice and Lights Festival a tour bus crashes sending the driver to the hospital. As the accident is investigated the driver manages to leave the hospital only to end up a victim buried beneath Emily’s Frosty the Donut.

The Deputy Donut mystery series is another that I have followed from the beginning never missing the next installment. This one fits right into my quirky and humorous favorites although not quite as quirky as some. This series does have the bonus of the main character having such close ties to law enforcement making her sleuthing a bit more believable even if she isn’t a police officer herself though. With fun characters and enough donut talk to make me wipe the drool I’ll keep looking forward to more in this series.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

This was the first book that I read in the deputy donut series and I have to say it was pretty good. While this might have been number six, I was still able to follow along easily with what was happening. All that I was missing was some of the background information on characters which is easy enough to piece together to a certain extent to tell who is friends and who is just an acquaintance.

Emily is a character who has a donut business and is friends with the local deputy and because of that, she ends up helping out with the tour bus crash by taking what is potentially the top suspect. She keeps an eye on this person and kind of becomes friends with them in a way because she sees how upset they are over what happened.
Meanwhile, the deputy is trying to figure out why the bus crashed and making sure everyone that was on the bus is safe.
The whole town gets involved in keeping them entertained, housed, and safe.

Overall I enjoyed this story. This book is a quick read, that is sweet, but not overly sweet. It's one of those where the mystery is still at the front, but it's also nice to see the togetherness of the entire town when it comes to taking care of everyone.
I would like to read more in this series to see what non-holiday ones are like and to see if the dynamic changes.

I enjoyed enjoyed this cozy Christmas mystery with the gang from Fallingbrook. And while it was an enjoyable read it wasn't my favorite. However I enjoyed it enough to keep picking up the next book in the series.

Deck the Donuts by Ginger Bolton is book six in the A Deputy Donut Mystery series. It can be read as a standalone.
This quick, easy to read Cozy has great characters, plot twists, suspects, friendship, humor, and romance. You will be transported to snowy Fallingbrook., Wisconsin,
I was given an ARC by Kensington via NetGalley for an honest review.

Second chances should be cherished and not wasted. A bus accident, a vandalized ice sculpture, cross country skiing, yummy donuts, mistletoe, and murder. The plot is as well groomed as Brent's ski paths with twist and turns. Emily is a character you can relate to as she continues to move forward in life making amazing donuts, and using her instincts to separate more than just whites and yolks as she follows the clues. Plenty of backstory to explain the relationships and best of all, a recipe for a gingerbread donut!

This is such a fun series, and I had a great time with this cozy mystery. I loved the plot, the twists and turns, and the characters!