I loved the plot and the premises. Jo Silva is a fantabulous writer with absolutely brilliant and engaging storytelling. The list of suspects isn't long - no biggie that the perp is one of the guests. Donna and Joe are attracted to each other - hot damn!! Attention seekers and their dramas galore.

This is a locked room trope - or should I say stranded on an island in the midst of a blooming storm? Shocking developments in the second half of the story. Castles, ghosts of psychos past, and boom badaboom - um, I mean, things do get a bit explosive. *ahem*

Totally enjoyable story peppered with (big) chunks of quirky humour. My only niggle was the ending. Somehow, the explanations and the 'aha! gotcha!" moment wasn't up to my liking. Otherwise, this was an engrossing and entertaining read.

if you are looking for a murder mystery (locked room, remember!) with quirky characters and excellent storytelling, you might want to give Murder on a Cornish Isle by Jo Silva a try.

Netgalley provided me with an advance copy of this book under the title "Murder on a Cornish Isle" but it is listed on Goodreads under the vastly better title of "Murder on St. Michael's Mount". It is the second book in the series and I very much enjoyed the first one so I was expecting good things. It definitely delivered!

We find ourselves back in beautiful Cornwall where Donna Nightshade is finding her Detective Agency to be slow moving. She jumps at the opportunity to spend a weekend at a house party on St Michael's Mount, keeping an eye on the visitors' behaviour on behalf of the owners. Other members of the totally entertaining Nightshade family are dragged into working as cooks and waitstaff, and as you can expect with this family in charge things go very much awry.

I was very impressed with the whole book. The author writes in a very entertaining fashion and all of the Nightshade family are just a little crazy which gives her plenty of opportunity for fun. The setting in Cornwall is very dear to my heart and I have walked on the causeway pictured on the cover. It was some years ago though and I do not remember it being quite as smooth and neat as the cover art portrays it. I remember rocks and wet sand but as I say it was a long time ago.

Altogether an excellent read with a lovely Cornish feel, one amazing method of murder, a talking parrot and the continuing promise of romance for Donna and Joe. Maybe in the next book.

Enter this second book in the fun, quirky, cozy mystery, world of the infamous Nightingale family and enjoy one of the most unique detective agencies in the world. Set in modern Cornwall UK, this is a fun adventure. As another reviewer noted, it's a 'locked island' whodunit. Who's trying to kill the Home Secretary or are they really after someone else in the former military group that meets on the island to 'remember' the war? If you like something a bit different but very engaging, I recommend trying the two books in this series.

My first mistake was not realising this was the second in a series. After that I would say I enjoyed this book but my second mistake was leaving too much time between starting it and continuing it. I didn’t immediately warm to it. I did finish it but feel that if I had read the first one before this I would if enjoyed it more.

It's been very quiet on the private detective side and Donna is please when Lady St Clement from St Michael's Mount asks her to work at a reunion organised by her nephew. The Home Secretary, Pinky, will be there and has been in receipt of death threats. She doesn't want to bring her personal protection detail and Donna is charged with keeping her safe.
As with all these things, the best laid plans aren't always the correct ones and when the Pinky turns up dead the race is on to find the murderer before the tide goes out and the causeway is open once more.
An easy to read tale.

In this second book of the series Donna and her family are hired to protect the home secretary, who is attending a reunion on St Michael's Mount, her friendly local policeman Joe is also there undercover. Things naturally don't go to plan.......
I'd just finished the first book in this series, The Wrecker's Curse which I'd really enjoyed, when I picked this one up. You don't have to read that one first, although it does help. Again this book is a classic cozy mystery with plenty of twists and turns in the plot, along with humour to counterbalance the more messy stuff. I like the way the whole Nightingale clan are involved in solving the mysteries, along with long-suffering Joe. Add in the location, St Michael's Mount, that I have previously visited so can readily visualise the scenes (although it was a lot quieter when is there) which gave me a book that I really enjoyed again. Definitely recommended.
I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley, however this did not influence my review of the book.

I found this book a bit slow going whilst the author laid out backgrounds on all the guests, however if you persevere it does get better once the action kicks off. I did guess about one of the murders, but it was interesting to see how it played out. The characters were interesting and it was all nicely wrapped up but with an event at the end which I’m assuming will be picked up in the next book, though doesn’t leave it on too much of a cliffhanger

A fabulously quirky second book in, what is shaping up to be, a great series. You don’t need to, but I would recommend reading the first one first.
I love the Nightshade family, with their unique brand of chaos, and how trouble seems to follow them, although maybe they are troublemakers.
This is a great take on the classic locked room mystery, and I really enjoyed getting to the bottom of the mystery. And I now really need to get to St Michael’s Mount, although maybe not during a storm.

This is the second book in this series and it didn’t disappoint. Donna Nightshade has another mystery to solve in this who did it mystery set in a stately house which is accessed by a causeway. The tide comes in along with a storm and then a body is found.

This book is packed full of mystery, full of interesting characters and set in an incredible location.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy.

A locked isle mystery! The Nightshade family has been hired to cater a reunion of a group that served together in Iraq, including the Home Secretary, And then someone is murdered! Donna, our intrepid cozy heroine, investigates with the help (and sometimes hinderance) of her family and her buddy DS Joe Enys. It's a humorous take on the locked isle murder in a great setting with good characters, Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC,. No need to read the first one to enjoy this- and I know I'm looking forward to more adventures in Cornwall.

I absolutely loved reading this Murder mystery book. I was completely drawn into the topic and could not stop reading it.

private-investigators, Cornwall, sly-humor, situational-humor, series, verbal-humor, local-law-enforcement, reunion, veterans, snarky, small-town, small-business, threats, politicians, amateur-sleuth, infidelities, closed-circle-mystery, anaphylaxis, storms, tidal-island, romance, friction, friends, attempted-murder, investigations, murder, family-business, family-dynamics*****

Really, I have to start with a complaint about the varying names of this book. Not about the story itself!
First: this is not a boring, staid, suspenseful, detective procedural, but the investigation is good and well worth the reading time. It is a good cozy mystery with fascinating characters, sneaky twists, and incredible red herrings. Great cozy read!
Second: There is no way that any reader cannot laugh sox off! This is even more hilarious than the first episode of the Nightshade family and the Edge of the World Detective agency. The world building is fairly current but it still is a fantastic escape from the news media.
I requested and received an EARC from HarperCollins UK/One More Chapter via NetGalley. Thank you!

A fun quirky cosy mystery with unusual and intriguing characters in a fantastic location. I haven't read the first and while this was ok as a standalone I do feel I might have missed out on learning more about the quirky Nightingale family which is were most of the unusualness comes from. A great gothic feel from the location all in all a nice change of pace. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Another fabulous cosy crime from Jo Silva, it was great to be back in the company of the Nightshade family and the lovely Joe Enys. The book takes several twists and turns some i guessed the way it was headed but others took me by surprise. Great that it was set on St Michael’s mount in a storm so it gave it great atmosphere, you can tell the author knows her way round the Penzance area well. The humour in the book is an added bonus and you feel like it would be great to be part of the Nightshade family with their crazy quirky ways. Let’s hope Joe and Donna will finally get together at some point. Looking forward to the third instalment, as this one has left us hanging!

5* Quirky/offbeat/crazy British murder mystery.

You know when you've enjoyed a book so much that at the end you want to immediately return to page one and start again. For me, this is one such book. A complicated and wacky plot, I consider this even better than the author's previous book, The Wrecker's Curse.

The humour is thoroughly British, so might not be grasped by US readers, please don't give up, persevere, Google is there to 'translate'.

Love struck local bobby DS Joe Enys and all the Nightshade family appear in Donna's second case for the Edge of the World Detective Agency.

I'm confused. The book I read was Murder on a Cornish Isle by Jo Silva, second in the Edge of the World Detective Agency series. Goodreads lists Murder on St. Michael's Mount or Murder on the Mount, having a darkened picture for the book cover but the same story.

Thank you HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter and NetGalley for the ARC, this review is my personal, unbiased opinion.

Thank you @netgalley for sending me an ARC of A Murder on a Cornish Island in exchange for an honest review.

The plot is very interesting! It has some predictable elements, but also some very unexpected twists!
The writing makes me remeber one of those noir films where the protagonist narrates their thougts, which is nice, but something about it is odd. Sometimes it switches from 1st POV to 3rd POV, which isn't usually my cup of tea. I don't mind either POV, but I'd rather a book have just one.
One thing I noticed is that this book treats a nuts allergy and a peanut allergy as if they are the same. A nuts allergy and a peanut allergy are very different things: a nuts allergy usually refers to tree nuts, such as almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, etc. Peanuts aren't actually nuts, they're legumes, so most people who have nut allergies can still eat peanuts. I didn't really mind this in the book, I just thought it was important to inform people about it, since these allergies are quite common.
The characters are a bit one dimensional sometimes. What I noticed is that some, like Pinky and Jane are very complex, but others like Lamorna seem to have one definable trait.
Lamorna shouldn't be hiding the truth about her dad to Donna. Sooner or later she's going to find out and feel lied to. In these cases it's always better to talk and discuss things.
The mystery with Auntie Kerensa leaves me intrigued. Is she really swapping places with Auntie Donna? Or does she have DID? (The book mentions she could be schizophrenic, but this illness doesn't make you have different personalites, it only causes false ideas and hallucinations. So I believe this was simply a mistake and that DID is the most likely illness, since the Aunt seems to change personalities.) I personally believe they are switching places.
I think it sucks that Joe is in love with Donna, but dating Demelza. He's just stringing her along, when he doesn't have feelings for her. It's kind of emotional cheating. She doesn't deserve that.
The ending was devastating, I wanted Donna and Joe to get together. Why didn't she just reject Jase? I understand we need drama for the next book, but I was really looking forward to their HEA.
This is a good mystery novel and I believe murder mystery fans will enjoy it.

Tw: death, murder, violence, poison, stabbing, shooting, child abandonment, jail, mentioned sexual content, war, cheating, alcoholism.

Firstly I would say you can read this book as a stand alone and don’t have to have read the previous book The Wreckers Curse, however I have already read that one and personally I’d recommend reading it first because you will learn so much more about the Nightshade family. You’re told what you need to know from previous happenings so you can follow the story in book no. 2, but I honestly think you will get so much more from this book if you already know some of the main characters.

Even though I’m not really a great fan of detective stories, be they police detectives or private investigators, I chose to read the first one because it is described as humorous and also because I’ve read other books by this author aka Melanie Hudson and enjoyed them. With the first one I thought, I’ll give it a go, and thoroughly enjoyed it so naturally I had to read this one because I wanted to know – “what’s next I wonder?”

The setting is perfect. A large house on an isolated island just off the mainland, accessed by a causeway but cut off by a storm. As it says in the blurb a reunion get together of old comrades who all served in one capacity or another during the war in Iraq, including the Home Secretary. They’ve hired the house to hold their party, with catering and ‘protection’ provided by none other than the Nightshade family. It’s not long before murder occurs and it’s down to Donna Nightshade and her friend Detective Sergeant Joe Enys to follow the trail and find out who dunnit.

The aforementioned Home Secretary, nicknamed Pinky is female and it wasn’t difficult at all to guess which real Home Secretary this character might be based on. It’s another fun read with lots of humour and madness but with an excellent plot, having many twists, turns and red herrings, not to mention imaginative ways to murder someone. It will certainly keep you guessing as well as amused and if there is to be a book 3? I’ll definitely be reading it.

One thing I know is that as one walks out across the causeway to St. Michael’s Mount, there is a clear sense of leaving the modern world behind and stepping back in time to this island’s incredible history. That same sense of ‘leaving’ grips readers as they leave reality, “descend into madness,” and enter the crazy world of the infamous Penzance family - the Nightshades.

What a perfect setting for this Edge of the World Detective Agency installment. This section of Cornwall is dramatic; steep cliffs dropping to the sea and hidden coves along the waterfront. The Mount (“a goth’s dream”) is a tidal island, linked to the quaint town of Marazion by a causeway, making it a perfect location for a ‘locked room’ cozy mystery!

After a dry spell in her amateur detective business, Donna Nightshade eagerly accepts a case to work undercover at St Michaels Mount where she’ll be rubbing shoulders with high-profile attendees. Amidst the merriment, a storm hits this tidal island and the partygoers are cut off from the mainland. The unease and trepidation increase when there’s a murder discovered …

Although this is the second installment of the series, author Jo Siva makes sure that her new readers feel comfortable right away by giving a little background to get them up to speed. It can be read as a standalone.

I love a book that drives me to Google. I learned all about Lord and Lady St Leven who live there at present. They seem nothing like the St Clement family!

This book will have you dreaming of a Cornish cream tea and leave you with a Cheshire cat-sized smile.

Thank you to the lovely people at Harper Collins UK/One More Chapter for inviting me to read this refreshing galley.

I was gifted this copy by Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

Another fun episode in the .I was able to pick up with the characters and their crazy exploits from the last book in the series.Perfect vacation book. #netgalley#harpercollinschapterone

A good fun read and good to see where this series goes next. Michaels Mount is a perfect backdrop too. Great setting, good characters.