Bran New Death

Merry Wynter has inherited a castle in upstate from New York and is leaving New York City after a bad experience. When she arrives in Autumn Vale, she finds a town full of quirky characters, and at least one person who believes her uncle was murdered. She had only come to take a look at the property and try to fix it up after it had not sold on the market. She discovers that someone has been digging giant holes on the property. Another man has gone missing as well; she finds irregularities regarding her uncle's business adventures with this man. In the midst of this her best friend from the city (Shilo) comes out to lend a hand and falls in love with the local realtor. This initial installment is a bit light on the mystery as characters show more are being introduced and such, but it's very readable. This is also not one where everything is wrapped up neatly at the end. The reader still has questions about what will happen, motivating the reading of additional books in the series. I felt there were a couple of questions that probably could have been answered for the reader without ruining the rest of the series that left me with an "incomplete" feeling at the end. I just kind of kept looking for the additional couple of paragraphs that would answer those little things. This review is based on an electronic galley provided by the publisher through NetGalley with the expectation that a review would be written. show less

Merry Wynter inherited her Uncle Melvyn's castle in upstate New York. While it needs a lot of work, she decided to do just enough to get it sold. But when she arrived she saw giant holes all over the property. With the help of her real estate agent, Jack McGill, who has volunteered to fill in the holes, and the arrival of her best friend Shilo, Merry is determined to make it work.

But what she doesn't count on is the people in town didn't much seem to care for her uncle, nor do they care for her. Trying to make friends isn't going to be easy. At least the local sheriff's mother Gogi, who runs a retirement home, has hired her to make muffins for the residents - if she can get a license to do so; but at least it's a start. But when Gogi show more asks her to look into Melvyn's accident, Merry is surprised. Gogi thinks it was murder, and Merry reluctantly agrees to do so.

But it isn't going to be easy, especially since she's identified the person responsible for the holes and he later turns up dead in one of them. Now, since she was seen threatening him and it was on her property, Merry begins to wonder if Gogi isn't right. Two people are dead. How many more will there be unless she can find out the truth?...

For the most part, I enjoyed this little mystery of a woman who has left a nightmare of a job - and the rumors surrounding the reason she left - to move to a little hamlet that might welcome her. But instead she finds more rumors - this time surrounding her uncle and his death. And when a local man is found dead on her property, she soon becomes embroiled in the murder mystery.

Yet with the help of her best friend and a local real estate agent, she's beginning to unravel things that someone has worked very hard to keep hidden, and it soon she realizes that her uncle might indeed have been murdered.

But what I didn't like was the fact that the local sheriff - who at first seemed to like her (and I am sure that will grow in other books) - could actually think she committed a murder, left town, and came back to get someone to 'find the body.' Why do I say this? It's not really a spoiler, but there is a scene where Lizzie finds a camp on Merry's property, and when she leads Merry to it later, inside the tent is a body. The body has been there awhile and I assume is decomposing (because this person was missing before Merry even arrived in Autumn Vale). Yet Sheriff Grace asks Lizzie if Merry led her to the body instead of the other way around. How much sense does that make? Merry would have to arrive unknown to anyone, wander around the woods, find the camp, kill someone, then leave town (again without anyone seeing her) and come back and act like she didn't know what was going on. Especially since when she arrived in town she didn't know where the castle was and had to ask the sheriff for directions. Really? If the sheriff believes even for a minute that Merry killed someone, she shouldn't have anything to do with him. The author could have done better than this if she thought about it. Plus, Merry herself doesn't seem all that sharp on the uptake.

Then there's the ho-hum factor. It's the fact that it's always the same: the protagonist arrives to a new place from whatever she's running from, and never has any money. Never. She always arrives on the edge of bankruptcy. Just once I'd like to see her get where she's going with a healthy bank account. I'm so tired of reading about women who are struggling just to get by and have to start a new life. This time it's because she blew her money in the stock market. As I said, Merry doesn't seem to be all that sharp on the uptake.

Anyway, when all is said and done, it was written pretty well, and I liked several of the characters. I'm hoping in the next book Merry will discover that her uncle left a little money tucked away for her, but we will see.

We don't know a whole lot about Merry except the fact that her husband passed away seven years ago. They were married two years, and he's been gone over three times that length of time, but she still hasn't moved on. It sounds harsh, but they weren't married that long, and while her memories are all good, even some of those would start to fade over that amount of time; yet she keeps mourning her loss, and that's why she can't move on. I would have liked to have a bit more of a physical description than just she used to be a 'plus-sized' model.

At the last, there are a couple of recipes in the back that were just okay. (I would rather have had the recipe for the carrot muffins instead of bacon, which I'll never make). Other than this, it was an average mystery that can be read in one evening. show less

Her career in disarray, Merry Wynter decides it's time to head to upstate New York and see just what type of property her distant Uncle Melvyn left her. Autumn Vale is very small and populated with the kind of quirky folk you would expect in the beginning of a new cozy series. They are guarded around Merry, she is a newcomer, and almost an heiress to boot. You would think Wynter Castle, it's odd holes covering the grounds and her uncle's business dealings would keep Merry busy. But, she finds a way to ingratiate herself to some townspeople by making muffins for the local nursing home. I liked Hamilton's new series and think the next book will help streamline some of these character's story lines, there was a lot going on a lot of the time.

Merry Wynter is at loose ends and running out of money when she decides to head off to Autumn Vale New York to live in Wynter Castle, the home she inherited from her Great-Uncle Melvyn. When she arrives, she realizes that the town is made up with some very eccentric persons, some of which take an immediate dislike to her. When she gets angry and threatens Tom Turner to stay off her property and stop digging holes, she becomes a suspect when he turns up dead. When another body is found on her property, she becomes worried. Merry not only tries to find out what happened to Tom, but she is also trying to figure out if her Uncle died accidentally or was murdered. As she begins to develop a muffin baking enterprise, she continues to show more investigate. A nice start to a cozy mystery series by Victoria Hamilton. show less

Good story, but HOLY CRAP did the editing of the last chapter or so SUCK. Seriously, it's like someone accepted the wrong stuff on track changes, as it goes through a conversation and then it goes through the same conversation slightly differently.

Still, it was cute and the last chapter didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book overall, it just made me mutter and such.

How many of us have a relative that we vaguely remember who would leave us an inheritance that consists of a castle and a forest? Not too many, but Merry Winter has finally headed to Autumn Vale to see what her Uncle has left her so that she can sell and move on with her life.

However, the people she meets in this quanit little town are far from normal or friendly so Merry is delighted when she is joined by her best friend, Shilo, and the two begin to prepare the castle for sale only to be disturbed by a nightly hole digger who ends up dead in one of the holes.

The story was interesting because all the while new characters are introduced the background of the area and the mystery are being revealed.

Looking forward to the next one!

4 star
I really enjoyed this first book in the series probably because it reminded me so much of the Lilian Jackson Braun’s Cat Who series both are set north of the large city where the main character resides, both inherit a large stone building from a distant relative. Both have former friends accompany the MC to their new home. Both have cats that help to solve the crime. Becket is more physical then Koko in that Becket actually attacks Merry’s enemies, but he also led Merry to a crime scene.
I can’t wait to read book two to see if I can find more similarities to The Cat Who.