Thanks so much to the author, 8th Note Press & NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was thoroughly entertained by Gator Queen from start to finish! I loved the unique take on this romcom - this story surrounds Maggie, a gator catcher from Wahoo, Florida and her twin sister, Vera, who are accused of murdering a rival gator catcher. Maggie works with her new tenant, Jack, a handsome professor from Miami to investigate the murder and prove their innocence. Their investigation kept me completely entertained by the strange Floridian characters and the setting. There also is a romance, but I would describe it as more of a sub plot. That doesn’t mean there weren’t some swoony moments!

There were so many lines that had me fully laughing out loud - my favourite line was “that man is the human embodiment of a period cramp.”

4.5/5 ⭐️ (rounded up)
1/5 🌶️

I loved this one. It was a mystery that didn't take itself too seriously and brought the reader along for the ride. I thought it was well written and I liked the characters.

This Book is Sooo Florida!!!!! As a born and raised Floridian I can say with complete confidence that this book is fire! Florida critters check. Florida man check. Corrupt politicians check. Murder mysteries that somehow involve gators check. Oh and romance too! Read it you will love it!

# Gator Queen
# 5/6/2024 ~ 5/25/2024
# 5.0 / 5.0

3.5 stars
The first installment in a new cozy mystery/romance series (Critters and Criminals) set in central Florida featuring a young woman known as the Gator Queen.

25 year-old Maggie Andrews has recently moved from Boston back to her hometown of Wahoo, Florida to continue the family business of trapping gators and to help her twin sister, Vera, open a romance book store. After a public altercation with the sisters, the only other gator trapper in town is found dead and Vera becomes a prime suspect. In an attempt to clear her sister before the grand opening of the bookstore, Maggie decides to conduct her own investigation with the help of their tenant, Jack Bianchi, a a very attractive criminology professor from Miami on sabbatical to write a book about serial killers.

This is a fun, quirky cozy mystery with a side of romance including a fake dating trope with Maggie and Jack pretending to date to avoid drawing attention to their covert investigation. Cute with a zany cast of characters, a few plot twists, multiple suspects and a great setting - overall a light, fun read!

Thank you to NetGalley and 8th Note Press for sending a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Cozy mysteries are so much fun and Gator Queen is no exception! Funny, a bit of suspense, and lots of Floridian content. I would prefer it on audio, but I still had fun reading this one :)

What an absolute pleasure to read this delightful book, a mystery with all the feels!
A new author for me, her writing style and the character connections make for a great start to this series.
Maggie returns to her hometown to take over her late father’s business, trapping gators. The story moves along quickly, describing the characters and swamp lands of Florida. Maggie’s twin Vera is opening a bookstore but first, a murder needs solving.
The characters are all relatable and show real emotion, it’s easy to feel their joy and pain. Jack is writing his own book on crime and enjoys pretending to be Maggie’s boyfriend. Alex is the town’s new policeman, trying to separate gossip from the truth.
I would recommend this book to lovers of a heartwarming mystery, mixed with plenty of humour and romance.

Thanks so much to 8th Note Press, NetGalley and Tara Lush for the opportunity to read and review this wonderful book.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Gator Queen is a cozy mystery, I always attempt to give a chance to cozy mysteries, but for me they just move too slowly, if it comes out in audio I will for sure give it another shot. I really liked the premise and thought it would be so cute, but reading it I found myself bored and needed to stop. I had to DNF this one but will get back to it on audio.

A witty cozy mystery, the kind that genuinely makes you laugh out loud at times. Both busted some of my misconceptions about Florida while also making the state feel larger than life.

In the mood for a warm and cozy mystery & romance combo that is simultaneously a promising start to a brand new book series? Gator Queen has you covered! The first in the new Critters and Criminals series, this book was a nice mental break not just from reality but also from darker books I tend to gravitate towards.

After her dad passed away, Maggie decides to leave her job and life in Boston in order to move back to Wahoo, Florida and continue family’s gator trapping business. Also to be there for her twin Vera who’s also embarking on a new business venture in the form of a romance bookstore. When a rival gator trapper is found dead and Vera becomes a murder suspect, Maggie enlists the help of their new tenant, a criminology professor she just happens to share some intense chemistry with.

This was one of those feel good stories (despite murder, lies, corruption), with likable and/or memorable characters, an adorable kitten called Catsy and a hot criminology prof who walks around shirtless a lot. The mystery wasn’t so mysterious but the investigation and trying to prove things were entertaining. I also really enjoyed the way the author poked fun at all the bizarre news that tends to come out of Florida.

I’ll definitely be picking up the next in this series. The cover was definitely representative of the vibe of this read and I was here for it!

A big thank you to 8th Note Press & NetGalley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Gator Queen is a fun read with a spunky FMC that is trying to help her sister start a romance bookstore and take over her fathers gator trapping business after he passed away. A bit of a slow burn with minimal spice level. I look forward to any more in this series in the hopes we get a book about her sister.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A fun romantic mystery set in a wacky small town in Florida. Maggie, recently returned to her hometown of Wahoo, Florida to take over the family business of gator (and other critters) trapping. Home, she reconnects with her twin sister and romance bookstore owner, Vera. The twins are renting a room to hot professor, Jack, who is on sabbatical to work on his book about serial killers. It's quirky and sweet, funny and engaging.

I appreciated how unique of a job Maggie has - and her acknowledgment of the frustration of not being taken seriously as a woman in the industry. As a former Floridian, I appreciated Lush's approach to treating alligators with respect, not treating them like a prop. Maggie's character makes a point in gator catching for the sake of preservation.

My own real critique is sometimes, Florida feels too often the butt of the joke. It gets a little old after the first few jokes.

I enjoyed the Florida aspect of the story -- it brought me right to the swampy state in my mind. I liked the descriptions of the small town. The writing was good, and the characters were just okay to me. I found myself struggling to imagine some of the characters' appearances based on their descriptions at times. Otherwise a great story.

Gator Queen by Tara Lush
✨ Cozy Mystery
✨ Light Spicy Romance
✨ Florida’s Weirdness
✨ Political Corruption

I’ve read somewhere around 10-12 books by Tara Lush and I was so looking forward to her bringing her skills of both Cozy Mysteries and Romance together in Gator Queen. Add in her trademarked Florida Weird elements and I figured nothing could go wrong.


I was wrong.


I thought about DNFing at 43%, kept going, thought again about walking away around 75% but was hoping it would turn around somehow. Finished it and wished I’d just stopped at 43%


Turns out that I REALLY don’t like Maggie. I think she’s rude, pushy, presumptuous, and extremely judgmental of her sister under the guise of “protecting” her. Also the way Maggie’s twin Vera is written felt really condescending in regards to her ADHD personally.


If I had connected to Maggie I probably would have enjoyed the book, but when you want to throat punch the MCs throughout most of it the enjoyment fades.


The Cozy was good, the mystery well written, the Florida weird off the charts, and the romance aspects were fantastic. If you’re looking for a Romantic Cozy Mystery hybrid this may be the book for you.


But it wasn’t for me, and honestly I’m so disappointed by that. 2.5 Stars from me.

Unfortunately, I don't remember much about this book - I finished it quite a few weeks ago - and I lost all the notes I had taken. I do remember being intrigued as I currently live in Florida, and love gators, but thinking this book had only one actual gator rescue and two gator encounters overall...so to call yourself the "Gator Queen" seemed a little strange to me.

The fact that I cannot remember much should not be a deciding factor for you - it's not necessarily that the book wasn't memorable, but more that I rarely remember a ton about books more than a few days after I've finished them unless I really, really loved them...and even then that isn't always a guarantee. Just the way my brain works!

Quirky, cozy and cute! A cozy mystery, sprinkled with romance, instantly captured my attention!
Glad I gave this book a shot. Loved it! I can’t wait to see where the series goes from here and I will definitely be following along. The town and local residents are super quirky, and Maggie was exactly the type of MC I love.

I loved this one, I can’t say enough good things about it. It had all of my favourite genres and aspects in one book without being too overwhelming and a mishmash of things. I loved the mystery, the romance and the humour. The FMC was a badass, quirky, bombshell and the MMC was a swoon worthy criminology professor that had great chemistry with our FMC. I just loved the fake dating hilarity and the murder mystery whodunnit vibes. I saw someone compare this to the Finlay Donovan series and I have to agree! 4.5/5⭐️

Tara Lush can do no wrong in my eyes and she delivered again in this new series. Maggie and Vera, Jack the new neighbor, Alex the new detective in town, and all of the gators you can handle come together to solve the murder of the sisters’ rival in gator trapping. This book has humor, romance and mystery and while elements of the mystery were not too hard to predict, it was fun in how it all came together. I can’t wait to read the next installment in the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

If you enjoy stories that feature quirky female leads , lots of laughs with murder mysteries thrown in
then this book is for you .
Maggie has left her job at Boston Zoo and returned home to help her sister set up her Romantic fiction book store .
This also allows her to fulfil her father's last request to keep his Gator trapping business running .
When her main competitor is found murdered , she becomes the Police departments prime suspect........... the bullets that killed
him came from her gun .
Teaming up with a 'hot' visiting professor she is determined to clear her name and find the killer , whilst still trying to help her sister with
the grand opening of the bookstore .

The repartee between the sisters makes for laugh out loud moments , and even though they squabble like sisters can they support
each other when the chips are down
This is a light hearted read with twists and turns aplenty - I look forward to the next book in the series

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

Gator Queen is marketed as a funny Mystery with Tiger King vibes. It did not meet my expectations for that, but it might just not be a book for me! It took me a while to realize what I didn't like from the start, but the main character is a late-20's woman who has come home after her dad passed away from cancer. My dad got diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, so please take my dislike of this book with a grain of salt. It might just not have been the book for me right now! All in all, I think it's worth taking a look if none of the below will bother you! It was well written and easy to read!

Things I liked:
1. When the plot was resolved, it didn't hang around and talk about the resolution for 2 chapters. I loved this.
2. Small town bookstore and personal business aspects
3. The hint of (bell pepper) spice and relationship aspect added in.
4. How much both of the sisters loved animals!

Things I didn't like:
1. For someone who is so close to her sister, Maggie sure felt free to trash talk about her to someone they had both just met (Jack). This juxtaposition between what she said and how she acted made it hard to like Maggie. I also think, for twins, their relationship was hard to understand. So Maggie has been back for two months and she doesn't know about her sister's life? If they were so close that they went away to college together, why would their relationship not have carried on? I was very confused by this.
2. At the beginning of the book, Maggie is portrayed as someone who curses often. She did not. It was a strange detail to include if not necessary. It highlighted much more for me how much she didn't curse or how often she used "safe" curse words.
3. Some of the phrasing felt incredibly off for the characters' age ranges. For example, talking about the "sports ball games" playing at a restaurant, the phrase "awesomesauce" or the quote, "Or maybe he really did have pants feelings for me."
4. Not at all important, but if Maggie has been back in town for two months, why would she just now be getting her car tags? It's state law to have it done within 30 days. If Maggie has only taken 1 business call and her dad's estate is all tied up in probate, what has miss ma'am been doing?

Thanks to 8th Note Press and NetGalley for a copy of this book!

GATOR QUEEN, by Tara Lush, is the first book in the Critters and Criminals Mysteries. Part cozy mystery, part sizzling hot contemporary romance, and wholly hilarious, I was glued to the pages from the very first paragraph. The author has created zany characters with witty banter, while writing a mystery to keep the reader guessing. Protagonist Maggie Andrews is a gator trapper in Florida. I love her quirks, and her internal dialog kept me laughing. I found the bits and pieces included about gator trapping to be a fascinating addition. The interaction Maggie has with her twin sister, Vera, owner of a yet-to-be-opened romance bookstore, is both heartwarming and realistic. They support each other in every way possible, but then have their squabbles, like most sisters do.

The mystery itself was well-plotted with plenty of suspects who wanted Maggie’s rival gator trapper. With everything going on in Maggie’s life, between gator trapping, the hot professor love interest, her sister’s bookstore, the murder, the book is fast-paced, and I didn’t want to put it down until I’d read every last word. I can’t wait to pick up the next book in the series!

I was provided with an advance copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.