annieb123
Written on Oct 6, 2021
Death in Bloom is a new series opener for a new small town cozy mystery series by Jess Dylan. Released 25th May 2021 by Macmillan on their St. Martin's Press imprint, it's 320 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This is an engaging and well written small town "shopfront" cozy with a young female protagonist (complete with unexpected puppy, slow burn nerdy potential romantic interest, and wise grandma dispensing charms and baked goods with equal abandon). The pool of suspects is small, and although the denouement and resolution are fairly easy to guess beforehand, they're well written and satisfying. There's a nice foreshadowing twist at the end of the book which I didn't see coming. It works perfectly well as a standalone, and is a nice lead-in to the next book in the series. The language is clean, and there's no graphic violence or sexual content. This would be a good choice for lovers of light cozies, the kind with whimsically eccentric small town characters, a town diner, and pets.
Four stars. This will appeal to cozy readers.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.