Bran New Death (Merry Muffin Mystery, #1)

by Victoria Hamilton

Expert muffin baker Merry Wynter is finally ready to turn her passion into a career.  But when a dead body is found on her property, she’s more worried about cooking up an alibi…
 
Merry is making a fresh start in small-town Autumn Vale, New York, in the mansion she’s inherited from her late uncle, Melvin. The house is run-down and someone has been digging giant holes on the grounds, but with its restaurant-quality kitchen, the place has potential for her new baking business. She even has her first client—the local retirement home.
 
Unfortunately, Merry soon finds that quite a few townsfolk didn’t like Uncle Mel, and she has inherited their enmity as well as his home. Local baker Binny Turner and her crazy brother, Tom, blame Melvin for their father’s death, and Tom may be the one vandalizing her land. But when Tom turns up dead in one of the holes in her yard, Merry needs to prove she had nothing to do with his death—or her new muffin-making career may crumble before it starts...


FIRST IN A NEW SERIES!

Includes delicious recipes!
 

• ISBN10: 0425258831
• ISBN13: 9780425258835
• Publish Date: 3 September 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425258835

Reviews

[Mystereity Reviews]

Bran New Death I started this a year or 2 ago and at the time, just didn't get into it.  There's a fair amount of back story that's dumped into the first chapter or 2 of the book and I think it turned me off.  Fast forward to now when I decided to clean out my Kindle of all the books I've started and not finished.  A sink-or-swim clean out, if you will.  Either I could get into it or I wasn't ever going to.
 
Merry Wynters at a crossroads in her life when her job falls apart in New York City, heads upstate (to my former neck of the woods, actualy) to figure out what it will take to sell the castle she inherited from her great uncle.  She finds a small village inhabited by eccentric townspeople harboring many secrets.  When a man is found dead on her property, Merry sets out to solve his murder and the mystery behind her great uncle's death.
 
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. The main character, Merry, is likeable and easy to relate to and a good plot that lagged in a spot or 2, but was well paced and enjoyable.  I had it figured out pretty early, but there were a few aspects that surprised me. But the one thing that made me stick with this book is that it didn't fall into the usual trap of the MC finding a body and the local hick cop hauls her in, despite no evidence..  Because that's not how it works, folks.
 
Although, I had to take off a half a star for a small, but significant error:  the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) doesn't give a shit how much you deposit in a bank account.  But the IRS and the Treasury Department sure do.  
 
A great read, and can't wait to start the next one.

[MurderByDeath]

3.5 stars. This is a very well written book with an excellent story and plot. It misses that last half star because I just didn't connect well with the main character. Her two friends, yes. Her hinted at future love interest - not even a little bit. So I was left feeling that while I really enjoyed the story, I didn't empathise with the main character at all.

The setting was really well done - Autumn Vale is full of quirky, eccentric folks and I found that the setting was written with realism - this isn't the idyllic quaint town that hums along; this is a quaint little town that is dying, with more storefronts closed up than open. There's a lot potential here for future development in subsequent books.

The central murder plot was very well crafted; this is a meaty story and not one I think you're likely to read in one sitting. Ms. Hamilton writes another series and in comparison, there is a much more mature quality to the plotting and writing in this first-in-a-new-series. The action moved along, there was well crafted dialogue, and not a lot of filler in the form of internal dialogue - there was a bit 'let's sum up the suspects' but it was minimal and didn't really take me out of the flow of the story. A convoluted plot with suspects known and unknown. Well done to the end.

I'll definitely pick up the next book - there's a bit of a cliff hanger in the form of a puzzle yet to be solved; that could prove to be fun. I'll hope that in the next book I'll find more to connect with regarding the main character, Merry.