*received for free from netgalley for honest review* I have read a few other books from this series and its a good cozy mystery, really enjoyed listening to this doing yard work outside!

My first book by this author was fine, the story was a little interesting. I kind of hoped a lot more by just reading the description.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author and I really liked it. It was just a bit slow for me but overall it was an enjoyable cozy mystery. I will read the rest of the series because I liked this one.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio.

I have been wanting to read books in this series for a while. The story line and book covers captured my attention. So, I was glad to finally have the opportunity to read one of the books in the Meg Langslow series. However, it was just meh. It wasn’t a bad book. But it wasn’t one that really kept my attention and made me want to read more in the series. I think it would have been better if I had read earlier books because while some of the characters were interesting, others were not. And there were so many characters that it made the mystery a little difficult to follow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

For more reviews, please visit my blog at: https://www.msladybugsbookreviews.com/. Over 1000 reviews posted!

Donna Andrews brings the Langslow family back in Birder She Wrote which is the 33rd installment of her Meg Lanslow Mystery series. In this book, Meg is tasked by Mayor Shiffley to intervene in a dispute between a group of newcomers to Caerphilly and the neighboring long-time farmers. Adding to the tensions, Meg’s grandmother is being interviewed for a profile in a Southern ladies magazine but asks Meg to accompany her and Deacon Washington in a search for a long-lost African-American cemetery. Unfortunately during the course of the search for the cemetery, the group happens across the body of one of the newcomers who has obviously been murdered and one of the neighboring farmers has disappeared leading him to become an initial suspect in the case.

As with the earlier installments of this series, the author has woven an intricate tale that incorporates numerous individuals from the community and the protagonist’s family. Through creative storytelling, the author also introduces her readers to the intricate details of what can occur when people who have lived in an urban area their entire lives move to an area where there are working farms and the accompanying inherent activities. Within this story, the author also throws numerous twists into the situations that the characters find themselves in leading the reader down one path to prospective motives and culprits just to switch it up to a totally surprising conclusion in the end.

The narrator of this book has created a unique set of voices for the characters and has allowed them to evolve as the characters have grown throughout the entire series. She also does an excellent job of pacing the narration for the listener to easily follow the story without it dragging or becoming monotonous.

I received an ARC of this audiobook from NetGalley and Macmillan Audio and am leaving this review voluntarily.

Come for the punny titles, stay for the pitch-perfect cozy.

This is part of an impressively long series, but if (like me) you're jumping in late, you'll be alright. You can tell there's a lot of history, but you don't necessarily have to be "in the know" to enjoy this one. But obviously, if you have even a passing interest in birds, rural life, and cozy mysteries that feel like lazy afternoons in a hammock, you (and I) will surely read the previous 32 books in the series.

Birder, She Wrote is a cozy neighborhood mystery that will keep you on your toes. I thought Donna Andrews did a great job at weaving together storylines that felt fresh and engaging. Using bees as a plot device was fun and I enjoyed the ending.

Gah, I adore a cozy mystery. This one is no different. absolute cozy perfection. So sweet. so cozy. so lovely.

A great murder she write who done it fun and quirky read!! I really enjoyed listening to this book. It has some twists and turns but was overall not too heavy and light hearted (as light hearted as a murder mystery can get)!

Birder She Wrote is an excellent cozy mystery with an older "detective" who has a husband and twin sons. Her father has bee hives and the murder of one of his neighbor's bees is the premise of the story.

Donna Andrews is an excellent author and knows just how to write a story that keeps her audience guessing and reading.more. I was very surprised at some of the paths she led me on before she wrapped up the story in a very satisfying conclusion.

MacmillanAudio #DonnaAndrews #BernadetteDunne #MegLangslow

I love me a Meg Lanslow book and this one was just as good as all the rest! I love this series and even though it is a series you can actually read them out of order without too much confusion. My favorite part of these books is how close and loving but also complicated their family is. Everyone is in everyone's business but is also there to help out at the drop of a hat!

I can't wait to see what they get up to in the next book!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with the audio copy of Birder She Wrote in exchange for my honest opinion. The narration was done by Bernadette Dunne.
Long-time fan of Meg Winslow here, first-time reviewer of one of her books. Birder She Wrote is #33 in the ongoing cozy mystery series by Donna Andrews featuring full-time mom, and part-time sleuth, Meg Langslow.
Hoping to enjoy a few blissful moments in the hammock surrounded by spring flowers and buzzing hummingbirds, Meg is jolted back to reality when her boss, the mayor, instructs her to once again pacify the dreaded NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) crew who live in an exclusive subdivision in Caerphilly, Virginia. Despite having moved to a rural town, the NIMBYs are anything but enthusiastic about farm life or animals, and their complaint list runs a mile long. Before Meg can even grab her car keys, she’s pulled into another adventure when she joins a friend on the police force and her grandmother Cordelia as they help an elderly friend locate a long-forgotten African American cemetery deep in the woods. Along for the ride is a snooty and intrusive reporter who is shadowing Cordelia in order to write a feature article for a niche southern living magazine.
Nothing in Meg’s life ever seems to go as planned, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise when the group discovers a murder victim hidden in the underbrush. The fact that the victim was one of the complaining NIMBYs, puts Meg right in the middle of the investigation.
The plot is predictable, the quirky characters as comfortable as your old jeans and the novel hits all of the marks of the traditional “cozy mystery.” None of the characters are well-developed and some are just window-dressing when the author needs to have an “expert” on some topic that Meg is unfamiliar with. Come on Meg! Google is free to use; please give it a try.
As in the previous novels, the main character puts all the clues together while nearly losing her life, solves the problems of her neighbors and friends, and manages to make it home in time for dinner.
It’s a novel that you can read in one sitting. It’s fun, light-hearted, gore free, and loaded with lovely descriptions of animals and nature. I wish I had Meg for a friend or relative, as I’d love to tag along on her adventures.

Meg is looking forward to a quiet afternoon in her hammock. Of course, that's not going to happen, she's got too much going on. Some of the new people moving in to Caerphilly have complaints (again) including against Edgar Brockton, the man who has been helping Meg's dad with his bees. Which is interesting because Meg herself has just gotten a new delivery. Her dad has come over to help get the hive set up when her grandmother Cordelia arrives with a journalist in tow. The journalist is following Cordelia around and that's going to include looking for a pre-Civil War graveyard. Too bad they stumble across a dead body.
If you are a regular Andrews reader, you can probably predict most of the beats of this story but that doesn't mean it's unenjoyable. It is a nice addition to the series.
I also got to listen to the audiobook and, as always, Bernadette Dunn only makes the story better.

Four stars
This book comes out August 1, 2023
Follows Dashing through the Snowbirds
ARC of ebook kindly provided by Macmillan and Edelweiss
ARC of audiobook kindly provided by NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Another excellent addition to the always fun Meg Langslow series!

I am always happy when I get a new Meg book to read and this one was no different - I knew I was going to get a good book that is well-written [and doesn't beat you over the head with the same information over and over again - HALLELUJAH!!], with a good mystery and lots of humor and the realization [again] that I am really glad I don't have Meg's crazy life! LOL

While I knew who the killer was before we even got a dead body [in fairness, I think you are supposed to - it is getting to the why and how and wading through all the excellent red herrings that is the best and bulk of the story], this was still an excellent story. While I missed Michael and the Twins and even [GASP] Meg's Mom, I loved that we got more interaction between Meg and her Dad and with her grandmother Cordelia [who I absolutely ADORE and she makes me miss my grandmothers so very much], plus, Michael and Co. come into play in the end and their participation shows that the twins have very much inherited their mother's love of snooping. ;-)
Also, I 100% LOVE SPIKE in this one. IYKYK. ;-)

This was such a pleasant way to spend a few days reading and I am already looking forward to the next one!!!

I also received an audiobook ARC for this book and I am so grateful. WHILE this narrator is not one of my favorites [and I will never, ever love how she does Meg's dads voice], since I now have to listen to audiobooks almost exclusively, she has really grown on me and I really enjoyed this outing. I don't even think I rolled my eyes [which happens quite a bit when I have a narrator I am not a fan of]. I am glad that I am adjusting to her [it is always a great thing when this happens] and and really looking forward to listening to her narrate the next one.

I was asked to read/review this book by the publisher, and I thank them [St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books], Donna Andrews, Bernadette Dunne - Narrator, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for providing the ARC and audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely delightful cozy murder done right. I enjoyed the characters and the setting. I had no idea going in that this was the 33rd book in a series, but after reading it, I can see why. At no time did it feel forced or weird that this character was involved in solving the murder. There were no moments of smacking my forehead and wondering why the main character was being so foolish. Other than one Chekhov's Gun that never got fired, I had no frustrations with this story at all. It feels exactly like long-running, small town set cozy murder series should. It reminded me very much of Murder She Wrote.

The mystery was interesting and plausible. The solution to it all made sense. At no point was I yelling at Meg to do something different or smarter. She made the right choices in every situation, the sign of a competent hand at the writing wheel of this series. I'm not sure if I will go back to read previous books in this series or not, but I will definitely keep an eye out for more of them in the future.

The audio narrator did an excellent job as well.

The 'chekhov's gun' that I mentioned earlier was the fact that the person who turned out to be the murderer apparently kept calling the dead man Edgar. The fact that there was also a missing man named Edgar, and that the two men did look similar from behind, got mentioned again later in the book, but the two things were never connected and apparently had nothing to do with the story. It was a weird red herring that never got addressed and really shouldn't be there.

So let me start by saying that this is the first of her books that I’ve read…and it is fine as a stand alone, but, according to Goodreads, she has written over 30 books in regard to the main character of this book, Meg Langslow.
There are a lot of characters here, so just be prepared!
We have a reporter, a murder, a Southern Country Charm neighborhood full of townies, and then we have the NIMBY’s (not in my backyard), which I found hysterical, but beautifully portrayed! These are the people from the city, who come out to the country, looking for some peace and quiet…but then turn their homes into ones like the city!!
We have a sheriff, a doc, nosy neighbors and a whole lot more! We also have a blackmailer!
And then we have Meg…who somehow gets involved in everything!
(I loved the narrator, but, I had no idea Meg was a young woman…until it was mentioned that she had young kids, a Mom and a Grandma! Maybe in the future the narrator can use a youngish voice for Meg? Just a thought…)
Short. Sweet. Lots of birds featured…as well as bees!
Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC of the audiobook!
3 1/2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me!
Release date was August 1st, so on shelves now!!

It was so much fun to be back in the town of Carphilly. With characters that I've grown to love and adore.

This book has everything that I love about a cozy mystery series. It has a town with all the small town cozy vibes. A cast of characters, both main and side who are delightful to read about. And a very intriguing mystery at the core.

Like all of the books in this series, you have a murder that takes place and through some form or another Meg is always tasked with helping.

I thoroughly enjoyed being back in the world with this cast of characters and just went along for the ride. The moment I started reading this I could not stop. I had to keep going until I figured out what was happening and who the murderer was.

This book didn't disappoint. Hummingbirds, bees and murder. What's not to love.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for an audiobook of this fabulous book.

BIRDER, SHE WROTE marks the thirty-third installment in the captivating Meg Langslow mystery series, penned by the talented Donna Andrews. As a newcomer to Andrews' works, I must say this cozy mystery hit all the right notes. While it took a little time to fully immerse myself in the story, the intriguing plot gradually drew me in, making it an engaging read.

The book boasts a diverse array of characters, some of whom seem to be recurring figures from previous books in the series. Despite this, I found the novel to be easily accessible as a standalone, as the author skillfully provides ample background information, allowing readers to grasp the characters' roles in the community.

The narrator's performance added an extra layer of enjoyment to the experience, deftly portraying a variety of voices for each character. This added dimension enriched the storytelling, enhancing my overall enjoyment of the audiobook.

This is part of a series, but absolutely can be read as a standalone with no issues. I will definitely be going back for more from this author. Meg, the local amateur sleuth is dealing with the craziness of the us vs them people in her town. I mean, who moves to a farming community and is then mad at the farmers and all that goes along with with it? The NIMBY’s (not in my backyard) and they are pretty obnoxious and have zero self awareness other than the belief that their finances make them better than everyone else. Missing people, murder, blackmail, adorable search and rescue dogs who uncover a much disliked community member thats been murdered while looking to locate a long lost African-American cemetery make for an easy listen. A bit disjointed and scattered, but easy and with a nice wrap up. Would have given 3.5 if half stars available. Nice narration.

I received an uncorrected audiobook ARC of Birder, She Wrote from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Once again Meg cannot sit for one minute without someone calling out for her help. In Birder, She Wrote, Meg grabs her trusty notebook sets out with her grandmother, Cordelia and her friends, to find an African Amercian cemetery. Instead, they find the body of an unpopular neighbor! It is up to Meg to put an end to all the shenanigans going on with the honeybees, hummingbirds, bribery and murder, oh my!

This is number 33 in the series. It can be read alone. Ms. Andrews did a great job! I highly recommend the Meg Langslow series.