Dairy, Dairy, Quite Contrary by Amy Lillard is the first book in The Sunflower Cafe Mystery series.

There are some quite nice characters, but some of them are too stereotypical and were at moment very annoying. It was too cliche.
Some expressions and phrases were too repetitious for my liking and I thought quite unnecesary for the story.

The story itself was well presented and characters drawn out. We slowly get to know them better.
I don"t particularly like Amish setting in my cozies but that didn't deter from the story or lessened it in any way.

The ending was a bit unsatisfying and in my opinion too rushed. Solid first attempt and hopefully it will resolve some issues in the next installments.

I love cozy mysteries! Especially when I start a new series and get to meet a new batch of characters and read about their lives/town. Throw in a pun of a title and you’ve definitely got me hooked! This books had fun characters and an entertaining storyline. I loved meeting the new characters and can’t wait to read the next one!

Thank you NetGalley, Amy Lillard and Kensington Books for the ARC of Dairy, Dairy, Quite Contrary. This is my personal review.
I am a fan of cozy mystery series and I enjoy reading new authors for me and their new series.
Sissy Yoder went from Oklahoma to Kansas to help her Aunt Bethel at the Sunflower Café. Her Aunt had broken her leg and Sissy went to help her.
Sissy had an adorable Yorkie named Duke who is adorable, and I just wanted to reach out and cuddle him.
The characters and mystery for the first book in the series was a great start. The author did a wonderful job of pulling me in and with the twists and turns I liked that for me the mystery was not too easy to figure out.
I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

A nice start to a new series. Sissy's family was Amish but moved from Kansas to Oklahoma and raised her English. When her boyfriend AND his sister turn out to be rats, she moves to Yoder to help her somewhat cranky Aunt Bethel run her Sunflower Cafe. It's not an easy transition and then she finds the milkman murdered, with a knife from the Cafe stuck in him. Of course the Sheriff thinks Sissy is the murderer- she's new to town (seriously?) - but she sorts through the various Yoders and others to find the real villain. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. I liked the cultural aspects of this perhaps more than the mystery but it's a good light read.

Dairy Dairy Quite Contrary by Amy Lillard

A big thank you to @kensingtonbooks for this #eARC! Preorder your copy now in advance of its June 28 release!

Burn slap from a break up and her job, Sissy takes advantage of an opportunity to help her Amish aunt and cousin out who are down a few hands at their restaurant, The Sunflower Cafe. The move sees Sissy, and her little puppy Duke, move from Tulsa to small town Yoder while leaving the rest of her life on pause and possessions in storage. When Sissy happens upon a dead body one day at work, she quickly finds herself at the center of the investigation. It is up to Sissy to clear things up and clear her name.

This was a fun and cute book! Definitely a perfect light summer read in between the many dark thrillers I frequently read! I really enjoyed the investigative element without it being too heavy handed or serious. I thought it was also fun to learn a little more about Amish life, as this is only my second book in an Amish setting. The description of the setting was sound and I could truly picture Yoder in my head, even down to the fridges full of cheese blocks and yogurt. One of my favorite touches were the Aunt quotes at the start of each chapter. The only thing I’ll add is that parts of the book did feel drawn out and lacking for action and some of the introductory elements were redundant, such as her column.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fun, light summer mystery.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 - 3.5/5

Dairy, Dairy, Quite Contrary by Amy Lillard (Sunflower Café Mystery #1) 3 stars

A new cozy mystery series by Amy Lillard, an author known for romances and mysteries set in Amish Country.

Sissy Yoder, a millennial advice columnist is looking for a new start after her life implodes. As a stopgap, she goes to Yoder, Kansas to help her Aunt Bethel, who owns the Sunflower Café. Her Aunt Bethel was recently injured and should stay off her feet, but she refuses to stop working. So Sissy shows up to help by working in the café. Unfortunately, not long after her first day she discovers the body of the local milkman with a knife in his back. Because she is an outsider, the police thinks she is the primary suspect. Sissy is going to have to figure out who had it in for the milkman before she is arrested.

Since this is the first book in a prospective series, it has to do a bit of world building. The main and supporting characters have to be established and the foundation for her insertion into the community created. The book was a little slow at first; but I appreciated the descriptions of small town life. I found the reason for Sissy leaving her original home a little weak. But a lot of flaws can be forgiven if there is a cute dog. Duke, the Yorkshire terrier is the best kind of canine sidekick. As for the mystery, the main clue to help solve the mystery didn’t appear until 70% into the book. A good read but not a great one.

Thank you Netgalley and Kensington Books for this ARC.

When I saw that Amy Lillard had started a new cozy mystery series I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. I wasn't disappointed. Sissy Yoder and her Yorkie, Duke entertained me no end. The mystery was solid full of red herrings and a few twists to keep me guessing.
Sissy heads for the small town of Yoder, Kansas to get away from Tulsa and her failed relationship with her now ex boyfriend. As it happens, her Aunt Bethel has broken her leg and can't get help from her daughter because she is on bedrest until her twins are born. With the Sunflower Cafe in need of help, Sissy sees it as the perfect chance to hit pause and decide what to do next. That didn't include : one- finding the milkman stabbed to death behind the cafe, two-becoming the prime suspect by the police even though she has only been in town a few days and three- having to deal with her Aunt Bethel who doesn't really approve of her 'English' (non-Amish) ways. Oh and Sissy has a secret - she is 'Aunt Bess', an agony aunt who is supposed to be 70 years old.
I enjoyed meeting the various characters in this new cozy and I am looking forward to the next in the series. Not only for Sissy and Duke but I do like the slower pace of Amy Lillard's stories - both mysteries and romances.
My thanks to the publisher Kensington and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Another wonderful mystery series from Amy Lillard. Dairy Dairy Quite Contrary begins Sissy Yoder's fresh start helping her aunt run her cafe in the small town Yoder, Kansas. After her arrival, she finds the dairy delivery man dead. . Being the newcomer, Sissy becomes the number one suspect. Sissy must find the criminal before the sheriff locks her up. Amy Lillard always brings in a nice cozy mystery. Her characters are very relatable and well rounded. While this cozy seemed more laid back then some of her stories, it still kept the many twists and turns that we have come to love about her books. I was definitely surprised by the culprit.

This is a pleasant, if somewhat predictable, cozy with some fun moments. The quotes from Aunt Bess at the beginning of each chapter alone make it worthwhile to read. Thanks to Kensington and NetGalley for an ARC. The opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for this ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily. Sissy Yoder has "escaped" from her bad relationship and her home in Tulsa to her family's home in Yoder, Kansas. She is a reporter and an "undercover" columnist known as Aunt Bess so she has a "nose" for investigation which made her a perfect character to play amateur sleuth in this fun cozy mystery. She has come to town to help out her Aunt Bess in her restaurant known as the Sunflower Cafe. Her family is Amish, and Aunt Bess does not fully approve of Sissy's way of life. However, due to the circumstances of having a broken leg PLUS her daughter being bedridden due to her pregnancy, Aunt Bess grudgingly accepts her help. Sissy really just wants to help her family and forget about her failed relationship she left behind. Sissy would prefer just to blend in and lick her wounds from her bad relationship with her boyfriend. However, being a wallflower is not going to work after she discovers the milkman with a knife in his back. She is an "outsider", according to the sheriff. Therefore, she is a top suspect. Sissy knows she did not kill anyone and she is determined to prove the sheriff wrong. I love Sissy's dog, Duke. It is such a regal name for a tiny little Yorkshire Terrier. He is the star of the show when he is around. The author did a great job of mixing up the Amish with the English (which is not surprising since she has written so much Amish Fiction). This was a great mystery. I have to confess I never would have guessed the killer which makes the mystery so much more interesting to me as a reader. Amy Lillard can always be counted on to write a good, clean mystery and she does not disappoint with this one.

Can you imagine moving to a town the same as your last name? Well, Sissy Yoder does just that, and arrives at a place where a lot of the people whom lived there were also named Yoder. Sissy leaves Tulsa with not many of her things, but is going to help her, actually unknown Aunt, and work in her cafe.
When she is still getting to know her family, and job, the unthinkable happens, she finds a body. The body of the milkman, and now she is a suspect!
With her name in the local sheriff’s list of suspects, she embarks on her own journey to find the killer, and we walk along with her.
I loved her little terrier Duke, and he makes you smile as we journey for answers!
Yes, I first suspected one and then another, but in the end, I was definitely surprised!
Come along on a journey for answers!
I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Kensington Books, and was not required to give a positive review.

A pleasant cozy mystery. Yoder, Kansas, is similar to Iceland as nearly everyone is related. Cute dog. A new friend. Lots of relatives. Nice beginning to a new series. Thought I had the culprit figured out, I was wrong. Close, but wrong. Always nice to be surprised. Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy via NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this book. the twist and turns. I never dreamed of who would turn up as the killer. Sissy does an amazing job coming back to the town she was born in and left, and everybody eventually accepted her. I hope the twins are born in the next book. I am anxiously waiting to hear. It was also a good cozy relaxing read with her cute little dog.

i think this is a classic case of "this book just wasn't for me but i'm sure other people will enjoy it". for me, none of it really felt fleshed out in a satisfying way (characters or plot or setting, although i think the setting was the best part) and i didn't feel like we got to feel the connections between anything. it's hard to explain and it makes sense in my brain, but it sort of felt like A B C instead of A+B+C+D=E. duke was cute, though

Sissy moves to Kansas to help work in her aunts cafe. One morning after she shortly arrives, she finds the milkman with whom she had an earlier disagreement with, stabbed at the back door of the cafe. The eyes of the sheriff immediately turns to her as a suspect.

I found this clean cozy mystery to be interesting and was surprised to find out who the killer was.

I was given a complimentary copy of the book from NetGalley and the publisher for my honest opinion and review.

For the first book in a series this was a great book. The characters were interesting and left plenty of room for future development. The Amish town in Kansas was a wonderful setting. The murder provided a great reason for our sleuth to get to know her new town and neighbors. Will definitely read the next one!

Thank you to netgalley and publishers for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for my honest review and opinions.

Sissy Yoder leaves Tulsa after breaking up with her boyfriend to help her Amish aunt run her café in tiny town Yoder. Days into working at the Sunflower Café, Sissy finds a dead body in the back and quickly becomes the sheriff's top and only suspect. Sissy ropes in the help of Gavin, a local reporter for the paper to help solve the crime. The star of the book is of course Duke the 3 pound Yorkie.

This is only my second cozy mystery book I've read. I give it 3-3.5 stars. I found the book to give almost too much details on mundane and completely nonimportant subjects. For example the amount of detail that was written about the product on the end cap at Wal-Mart was just unnecessary and unneeded filler in my opinion. I've also never seen the phrase 'or something like that' used so much before, and it honestly started to annoy me. The writing could easily be edited down and trimmed up.

I liked the characters for the most part. I figured out pretty early on who the killer likely was and the motive behind it. Sissy and the Yoder crew are all kind hearted people. I liked the mix of Amish and English characters in the story. Showing that they all peacefully lived mixed together in a tiny town. The sheriff and his one note song was straight up annoying. No crime would ever be solved that way, and I found it obnoxious that they couldn't give him any other suspect to harass like he did Sissy.

I found the ending to be a bit unsatisfying. It was wrapped up very quickly and left a few loose ends. I felt the ending could have had more attention paid to it if the rest of the book didn't have so much unnecessary detail in it. But maybe that is because they want to bring people back for the second book.

All in all, I wouldn't say I didn't like the book, I just found the writing to be not my style.

This is my first Amy Lillard Cozy Mystery and I found it to be very laid back . This doesn’t mean I didn’t like this book but that I felt it dragged in places. I did find it to be witty especially when it came to the main character Sissy Yoder. The cast of characters were a good mix of English and Amish people. It seamed there was very little clues left at the murder scene so our slueth had very little to work with. The murder took place early in the book and it took till the final chapter to find out whodunnit. This book is the first in the series so we are introduced to the all the characters, and there are a lot of them. I found them to be good down home folks from a small town. I felt the book was hard to put down, entertaining, definitely an original and easy to read. I will be reading book two when it becomes available.

Sissy Yoder was born into an Amish family that jumped the fence and moved from Yoder Kansas to Tulsa Oklahoma. She then was raised as a English girl and she attended college majoring in journalism. She was secretly writing a newspaper column as Aunt Bess and she made a good income from it. Then her relationship with her boyfriend went bad and her best friend, who she shared an apartment with and who happened to be her former boyfriend’s sister asked Sissy to leave. Feeling betrayed and hurt she decided to go to Kansas to help her Amish Aunt Bethal Yoder in her Cafe’. Aunt Bethal is short on help and Sissy decides to step up to the plate and help out her Kansas family.

Yoder, Kansas is a small town and almost everyone that lives there is named Yoder. Not all the Yoders are related and it’s confusing for Sissy since she is new in town. Aunt Bethal doesn’t actually give Sissy a warm welcome but her bark is worse than her bite and she eventually invites her young niece to come stay with her. Sissy works as a server and about the third day working there she is asked to go check the order that milkman Kevin Sanders is delivering to the kitchen. She is to check the order to be sure that everything has been delivered. But Sissy is shocked when she finds Kevin dead in the kitchen with one of the Cafe’s knives in his back. Deputy Sheriff Earl Berry makes Sissy his prime suspect since she discovered the body in the kitchen and after all she is new in town. No one but Sissy seems to be at all concerned about this. Since Sissy doesn’t want to go to jail for a crime she didn’t commit she must come up with clues and find out who really killed Kevin the milkman. The problem is the only clue she has found is a small piece of ribbon on the floor in the kitchen. She is all alone in her sleuthing because no one seems to be the least bit concerned about who killed Kevin and all her coworkers seem to think no one in Yoder would ever stoop to murder. Yet Earl Berry never misses an opportunity interrogate Sissy about the murder . Will Sissy be able to find enough evidence to find out who the real murderer is and clear her name from the Deputy Sheriff’s list of suspects?


I recommend this book to readers of Cozy Mystery and to fans of the author. This book is scheduled to be released on 6/28/22.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#DairyDairyQuiteContrary#NetGalley

Sissy Yoder's parents left the Amish community in Kansas where they grew up, and she was brought up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. When her life falls apart in Tulsa, she heads to Yoder, KS, to help a cousin.

Life in the Amish community is full of surprises -- especially when a murder takes place at her cousin's cafe. Sissy, as an outsider, finds herself the primary suspect.

Sissy is an appealing, down to earth character and her new life gives her some important insights. The story is well constructed and there's plenty of local color. I look forward to more installments in the series.

2 -2.5 stars
I typically adore everything Amy Lillard writes. Dairy Dairy Quite Contrary was just okay. I had a hard time connecting with the characters and the ever present bumbling sheriff gets old.
The end was okay but honestly I was just glad it was over.
I will not be reading the next in this series.