I always look forward to a new Amish Matchmaker Mystery with Millie and Lois and of course, the goats!

It is time for the fair. Games, fair food, and judging of the livestock and of course, the quilts.

The Holmes County Fair is the biggest event around and everyone flocks to the fairgrounds to see the animals, the crafts, and the food. This year, Millie is entering a quilt. Her nephew is entering the goats. Yes, both of Millie’s goats.

Lois has another reason for going to the fair. She has met a man on a dating site and is meeting him in person at the fair. Millie does not hold out much hope for the relationship.

The quilt competition is fierce, these ladies spend a year making a quilt and they are very protective of them. Unfortunately, this year we have a new woman in charge of the fair and the quilt judging and she is not making any friends! So when she is found dead on the floor, Millie and Lois get to work.

This was maybe my favorite in the series and I will not tell you why, but if you read it, you’ll know!

Netgalley/ Kensington October 24, 2023

Amanda Flower is one of my very favorite authors--so I am very happy to read an advanced e-copy of Dating Can Be Deadly , the 5th in The Amish Matchmaker series. I love the cover design--it fits right in with a Halloween read. Millie's naughty goats are keeping the fair minders busy with their antics, Lois is helping her bestie, Millie to cover all the best fair treats while they wait on the quilts to be judged. However, a murder occurs before the judging--and involves a quilt. The senior detective duo of Millie & Lois are ready to help hunt down the killer. This series is full of heart and humor--- this installment is my favorite!
Thanks to NetGally, Kensington Books, and Amanda Flower for sending the ARC that I requested. All opinions are my own.
#DatingCanBeDeadly #NetGalley #KensingtonBooks

Ms. Flowers is one of the very few authors who manages to keep me looking forward to the next release in a series and this one exceeded my expectations. I adore Milly and Lois, life long, unlikely friends who find themselves in some dangerous situations. They like being in the thick of things and never shy away from getting involved even when they are asked not to.
There is nothing better than a county fair with animal exhibits, games and judging of quilts and other items. This fair has all that and a murder, which Milly and Lois feel compelled to help solve. I love their friendship, they are kind, helpful and so funny you can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with next. There are returning characters who I have grown fond of and some new ones, too. One of my favorites is a young Amish boy who stole my heart.
This author pens some of my favorite cozy mysteries and I look forward to what she has in store for her readers next.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Millie and Lois - friends from very different backgrounds- team up once again in this wonderful addition to the series that will be just fine as a standalone. Millie, who is Amish, is widowed but she's got a full life, what with the animals and her quilts, and keeping an eye on Lois. Lois is not Amish and she's using an app to look for her next husband. Things go off track when the judge of quilts at the county fair is murdered but these two mature women are on the case. Oh, and they're also (more Millie than Lois) worried about who might have let the goats loose. It's classic cozy in a good setting and it's funny (not silly but funny). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

cozy-mystery, Amish, Amish-community, family, friends, friendship, verbal-humor, situational-humor, sly-humor, sleuthing-seniors, goats, local-law-enforcement, rural, relationships, fair, Ohio, small-town, small-business, amateur-sleuth, murder-investigation*****

Now that they are 68, Millie and her non-Amish friend from childhood, Lois, are still great friends despite their differing lifestyles Lois works well with Millie in investigating. Millie's goats are at it again! I know there's a good cozy in the middle of all this, but the laughs are the bestest! Laugh your sox off. Loved it and it really can stand alone.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Kensington Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

It's time for the County Fair, the biggest annual event in Holmes County. Millie and several other Amish women have entered the quilting competition, but when one of the judges is found dead and the displayed quilts are slashed, Millie and her very un-Amish friend Lois hunt for the killer – if Lois will put aside her fascination with a new dating app and her search for her next husband.

This is book #5 in this series, which I have enjoyed since the first book. Since this is a spin-off series from the author’s Amish Candy Shop series, the setting and the interactions between Amish and Englisch are familiar. Characters from the original series occasionally make an appearance in this one, but overall, this series has a separate cast of characters, who are like old friends to me by now.

The murder victim here was not a pleasant person, so there were plenty of suspects to think about, but one character seemed a bit off to me right from the start. That suspicion deepened as the book progressed, and it turned out to be correct. I hadn’t quite worked out the motive, which was rather complicated.

I can’t wait to read the next book in the series to find out what’s next for Millie, Lois, Peter, Philip and the rest.

This is the fifth book in the Amish Matchmaker Mystery series by Amanda Flower. The fair has just begun and that evening a body is found in the quilt barn with Peter and Philip, Millie’s goats.

There were plenty of suspects for the murder and other not so nice things going on. More than one person will be in trouble by the end of the book.

I found the mystery well-crafted, the characters unique, and parts were just sad on how others treat people. I learned more about prejudices and people unable to accept each other as they are.

I like the level-headedness of Millie. She balances the brashness of Lois, her BFF. I also enjoyed the Amish sayings – there is truth to them.

Ms. Flower has a way of bridging this series with characters from her other series. I like getting info on them that will tie me over until a new book from the other series is published. It's like visiting friends.
I enjoyed the ending, especially for Zach.

Netgalley gave me an advanced e-copy and I am not required to leave a positive review.

The Amish matchmaker mystery series is such delight! I look forward to each book. This one is at the fair where a judge has been found on a quilt quite dead. Written in Amanda Flower's delightful prose that always delivers an excellent read. I just adore this series. Thanks #Netgalley and #Kensington for the eARC in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are mine.

4

I am a fan of the Amish matchmaker books and have also read the Amish candy shop books, as well as her Farm to Table series when I want a “happy murder”.. I have both listened to and read books in the series. The main setting for this novel is at the county fair which is just starting at the beginning of the book. Millie is there to set up her quilt for the quilt show.

I liked this one. The setting is different and there’s a lot of interesting things happening with the people you already kind of know. Lois is at the fair for a blind date with a younger man who happens to own an axe throwing business also setting up a “booth”at the fair (despite the trepidation of the fair officials). Ruth is upset that they won’t allow her quilt in the competition, though that’s kind of dumb because she clearly missed the deadline, and she should know better. When you see her arguing with the main woman in charge, you get a sense of what might be happening in terms of the mystery. Millie’s great nephew is showing both Phillip and Peter the goats in the fair, which is ridiculous and of course there are lots of hijinks. There is a sweet boy with his tiny goat which kind of makes you cry a little.

Lots of other interesting things develop, but you’ll just have to read it to find out the biggest one.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from NetGalley in exchange for providing an unbiased review.

It is so great to be back with my friends in Harvest, OH. Whether it is the author's Amish Candy shop mysteries or her Amish Matchmaker mysteries, I always look forward to the next book.
In this book, it is time for the annual fair, and Lois and Millie are looking forward to the judging of the quilts Millie's group has worked so hard on. Until, the night before, one of the judges is found dead, laying on a ruined quilt. The investigation is on, and it involves axes, a ten year old unloved boy and lots and lots of goats. Not to mention Uriah, Millie's new love interest. Will she finally give in and admit to her dear old friend that she loves him too and is ready to move on?
Thank you, Kensington Publishers and NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

Millie and Lois are headed to the Holmes County Fair. Lois, to meet a date and Millie to exhibit her Quilt in the fair. When the woman who runs the fair shows up dead, there are plenty of suspect as she was NOT a pleasant woman, as even Millie can attest. But it’s the fact that Ruth Yoder’s Quilt is found with the body that has Millie and Lois playing Amish Marple yet again.

I adore this series, as well as the one is spun off of, and can never get enough. I love the simplicity of Amish life, yet the reality that we are all human. Amanda Flower is a gifted author and if you haven’t read one of her books yet, now’s the time!

Through NetGalley, I received a free copy of DATING CAN BE DEADLY (Book 5 of the Amish Matchmaker mystery series) by Amanda Flower in exchange for an honest review. It’s time for the Holmes County Fair, and this year, Millie is entering the quilting competition with a double wedding ring quilt. Millie’s great-nephew is thrilled to be showing Millie’s two mischievous goat sidekicks. Meanwhile, Millie’s best friend Lois is on the hunt for her next ex-husband. However, not all is fair on the fairgrounds. The quilting show coordinator is unpleasant. The caretaker in the goat tent is mean to everyone, especially his grandson. Finally, we all know how unreliable Lois’s taste in men can be. When the quilting show coordinator is found murdered, Millie, assisted by Lois, takes the case in an effort to identify the killer before the fair ends and all the suspects return to their usual lives.

I liked this book and enjoy the series. I recommend this series to fans of cozy murder mysteries featuring mature Amish female sleuths, feisty English sidekicks, and the sass of a spoiled goat duo.

#DatingCanBeDeadly #NetGalley

I always enjoy reading about Millie and Lois together. They are such opposites but have such a history and bond that it is great to see them interact. This book involves a county fair in which Millie is displaying a quilt. Of course, there is an overlap between the Amish and English with suspects on both sides. There was a cute little surprise at the end.

“Dating can be Deadly” is the nicely done fifth book in Amanda Flower’s Amish Matchmaker cozy mystery series. In this book unlikely friends Amish Millie Fisher and Englischer Lois Henry help investigate the murder of a quilting judge at a county fair. This is a delightful series – Millie and Lois make a great if odd couple. Widow Millie is trying to decide if she could ever marry someone again while Lois is on the hunt for husband number five. This series is filled with great characters – including Jethro the pig – he is one of the best animals to ever appear in a cozy mystery series! Then mystery itself is well done with just the right amount of suspects – this is the kind of mystery where I kind of guessed who the killer was but decided I was wrong only to find out I was right – the motive for the killing was well done and unexpected. Mixed in with the mystery is a smaller, heart aching plot involving a young Amish boy that was also nicely done. All in all, I really enjoyed this book.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley.

In Dating Can Be Deadly, childhood friends Milly Fisher and Lois Henry are pulled into another murder mystery when a quilting contest turns deadly.

Dating Can Be Deadly Summary
Readers are back in Harvest, Ohio, this time for the county fair. Millie Fisher is, for the first time, entering a quilt into the quilting contest. Lois Henry, Millie’s lifelong best friend, is there to meet a man (potentially husband #5) she connected with on a dating app. But when the head judge for the competition is murdered, Millie and Lois make finding the murderer their top priority.

Thoughts on Dating Can Be Deadly
I love the pairing of Millie Fisher, a widowed Old Order Amish woman and Amish matchmaker, and Lois Henry, an over-the-top Englisher. The contrast between Millie, with her quiet demeanor, demure prayer cap, Amish dresses in dark colors, and Lois, with her spikey purple-red hair, bright colored patterned clothing, chunky costume jewelry, heavy use of eye shadow, and a bag Mary Poppins would envy for the amount of items it contains is one of the best things about the novel. Even though they are as different as night and day, their lifelong friendship is strong. They model what true friendship looks like-accepting of each other, even though they may not understand each other (esp. Millie when it comes to Lois’ English ways) or agree 100% of the time.
The small village atmosphere encompasses both English and Amish communities, and the friction as well as the friendships are well-written into the novel. While the Amish way of life is a strong part of the series, it isn’t a whitewashed way of life. Flower’s characters reflect both the good and bad of members in both cultures.
Characters from Flower’s Amish Candy Shop Mystery series also make appearances. It’s fun to see which ones make cameo appearances.
The plot is also strong. Flower excels at planting red herrings and plot twists, and I found myself going back and forth between several viable suspects. This one kept me guessing until the final reveal.
There are four other books in this series, and while you can read this as a standalone, I would recommend reading the other books in the series first. You can read a sample from Dating Can Be Deadly here. If buying the book is too much of a commitment, then check out a copy from your local library. However you obtain your books, get a copy and read Dating Can Be Deadly.


Thanks to #NetGalley and #KensingtonCozies for providing an electronic copy for review. Thanks to the author for providing
a hard copy for review. All opinions are my own.

The county fair is in Holmes County and Millie has entered a quilt she has made. Of course her sidekick Lois is with her. Millie is witness to a heated argument between the woman running the quilt contest and none other than Ruth Yoder. When the woman ends up dead in the quilt barn will Ruth be the top suspect? Millie and Lois are on the case! Could Ruth dislike someone so much that she would resort to murder? As Millie and Lois investigate they find that there are several other suspects that had reasons to not like the woman. Will Millie figure out who the murderer is before another innocent life is taken?

I love Millie and Lois! They make me laugh. Also making an appearance of course are Millie's goats Peter and Philip. They are a handful, but Millie loves them as if they were her children. They have a knack for getting into mischief. We also get to see Juliette's pig Jethro who enjoys himself at the fair as well. Lois is dating a new man she met on a dating app. Millie isn't impressed with him, but Lois loves big so she has to tread carefully. Millie doesn't need a dating app. She has Uriah right there ready for Millie to decide if she can love again. Their relationship is sweet. Dating Can Be Deadly was the perfect cozy mystery for a weekend read.

Amanda Flower once again brings us a great book in her series that takes place in Harvest, OH. Millie who is Amish and Lois, her best friend who is English, have teamed up in the past and are well known for solving murders in this quaint town.

This book takes us to the Holmes County fair, which is the biggest event of the year. This year Millie has entered the quilt competition. She has never met the judge, Tara, who plays a huge part in this book, along with other characters we meet. The goats that belong to Millie are being shown by her nephew, a young child and his baby goat all play a major part in this book as well.

This is a great cozy mystery that you will not want to put down because so many of the outcomes within the story are surprising. The ending of the book is a pleasant surprise.

I highly recommend this book and cannot wait until the next one is released.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Kensington and Netgalley. All opinions expressed are my own.

I enjoy this series so much, and this latest book was one of the best. Millie and Lois are at a fair when the body of the woman in charge is found. Millie and Lois of course see it as their "job" to investigate and help out the sheriff in solving this murder, after all they've done it before! Love the uniqueness of the characters, even the four legged ones!, the fast paced of the plot, and the little side stories mixed in. Already looking forward to the next in the series. A must read for all cozy mystery fans!
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

look forward to reading these Matchmaker Mysteries by Amanda Flower. Dating Can Be Deadly certainly didn’t disappoint this reader. It was witty and funny and had me laughing out loud a time or two. I was left with my mouth hanging open when the whodunit was revealed. I never would have taken that character as a murderer. When Millie Fisher and her bestie Lois Henry get together to solve a murder they don’t give up until they’re face to face with the killer. I thought this mystery was an edge of seat read and very unpredictable. Just what I like to find in the mysteries I read.

It’s time for the county fair in Holmes County Ohio. Millie Fisher enters her hand stitched quilt that took her a year to complete. She has a lot of competition and there’s some beautiful quilts that have been entered. Millie has let her young nephew enter her two trouble making goats in the live stock competition. When the rambunctious goats get loose and hide out in the quilt exhibition building our two sleuths find more than the goats hiding out in that building. Tara Barron, a judge for the quilting entries is there too and she’s very dead. Something hit her on the back of her head. Was it an accident or a murder? Also Who let the goats out? Are the two situations tied together in Tara’s death?

I recommend this book to readers of mystery thrillers and Cozy mystery. This is book five of Amanda Flower’s Amish Matchmaker Mystery Series. This book could be read as a standalone and readers would not be lost when they read it but this series is so good that you will want to read the other four books too. Dating Can Be Deadly will be released on 10/24/23.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed here in this review are entirely my own.

#DatingCanBeDeadly #NetGalley

Comfortable. I realized at some point while reading that I felt quite comfortable and safe in Harvest, Ohio, maybe because I knew whatever happened, Millie and Lois would handle it. I also chuckled early-on as author Amanda Flower revealed that one of the activities of the fair was axe-throwing. Not long ago, Flower shared her own experiences trying out this sport at a fair. Let's just say, while she eventually did okay, she'd better keep her writing job. Lois Henry, Millie's best-friend-forever in the series, turned out to be amazingly proficient. Unfortunately for Millie, though she didn't try throwing around an axe, one of her talents seems to be stumbling over bodies. In this case, it's the body of Tara, who was not only to judge the quilting competition that Millie had entered but was chief organizer of the fair itself.

It was fun to watch the differing ways Lois and Millie approach investigating. Millie, Amish and unassuming, is quietly competent, not eager to call attention to herself. Lois, on the other hand, is flamboyant and quite vocal about how they've helped the police in the past. Let's face it, with her multi-colored, heavily gelled, spiky hair, non-Amish Lois doesn't exactly fade into a crowd. Hard to believe these two are in their 60's. Part of the fun of this series is learning a bit more about the Amish beliefs and lifestyle with each book. I love how Flower uses bits of their language and even sayings, my favorite this go-round being "You are only poor when you want more than you have."

The whole pace of this series/book might be described as gentle. Rather and odd term when so much is going on, much of it involving the well-being of a child, but it also falls into the slower paced Amish style at times. Let's face it, Millie drives a horse and buggy when she has to go somewhere, so there is ample time to ponder clues and things like her own romantic life. Unlike Lois, who remains eternally hopeful where love is involved, Millie is more cautious, slow to allow herself to yield the widow's life she's now lived for so many years. She puts her own concerns aside repeatedly, however, to dive into finding out whodunit as well as be of help to others, which makes her easy to like. Of course, we have ample critter antics for comic relief with even Jethro, the almost-star pig of a related series making an appearance. I also wanted to give Millie's patient horse a carrot for all the driving around they were doing in what was a very hot spell.

So, who killed Tara? It was fun to watch Lois and Millie tackle suspect after suspect. Maybe it was the ex-husband? Why does he keep turning up? Surely not the owner of the mangled quilt found with the body? Then again, the quilter was not happy with Tara. Maybe someone working at the fair? Who let the goats out anyway? Or, maybe it was....nah. Enough teasers. This is a delightful, easy read, full of fun characters, mischief loving goats, cute kittens, romance, and more. You'll like the ending, I think, and it definitely moves the series along, too, for fans. Thanks #NetGalley and #KensingtonBooks - #KensingtonCozies for allowing me a sneak peek both into Lois and Millie's world but, hmm, maybe what's coming with Bailey and Aiden? Somehow I just know Jethro will play a major role.