wow this was such a fun read! Mavis is so awesome she was such an easy character to love. The mystery was interesting and I was really pulled into the story. I had a great time reading this!

Single mom Mavis is doing alright — she’s happily parenting with long-distance support from her ex and in-house support from her dad, works at a nonprofit that could maybe appreciate her more but is tempting her with a promotion, and she mostly stays out of elementary school parent politics. Then her daughter’s principal goes missing and Mavis has to wonder, did she see what she thinks she saw?

This could be your run of the mill mystery, but for the fact that Mavis is awesome. If you read this book, be prepared to wish this fictional character was real so she could be your friend. Four stars because character development was exceptional, but minus one star because I knew who had done it the whole time and the “why” felt hasty and out of place. I will definitely recommend this.

Oh my goodness, I had so much silly fun with this one!

I adored Mavis!! She was so real! Juggling all of the things, all the time. Her relationship with her daughter Pearl was incredibly sweet. I love when young children are written realistically in regards to how they act and what they say.

This book has so much to enjoy. There is the dramatic moms element, where Mavis reluctantly joins the PTA filled with typical lulu lemon mommies with lots of opinions. We have a potential romance plot. Mavis is a single mom and she isn’t sure she is ready to be dating with so much on her plate, but there is such a pull to a school staff member who becomes her partner in crime… solving! There is also a fun mystery plot that we get throughout where Mavis flexes her amateur sleuth skills to find out what happened to the missing school principal.

I really loved Mavis. She was funny and engaging. The humor sprinkled through this book was perfection. Such a fun read.

This might be a bit too “real”/everyday life for me. I found myself bored and stopped after chapter 1 (6%). I’d imagine three stars for the target, four to five for the right readers. That said, MORE DIVERSE CHARACTERS AND AUTHORS, PLEASE. I love the diversity coming up in publishing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC.