Ratings7
Average rating3.8
This book kicks off a charming cozy mystery series set in an ice cream shop—with a fabulous cast of quirky characters. Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family's ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she's going back to basics. Win is renovating Crewse Creamery to restore its former glory, and filling the menu with delicious, homemade ice cream flavors—many from her grandmother’s original recipes. But unexpected construction delays mean she misses the summer season, and the shop has a literal cold opening: the day she opens her doors an early first snow descends on the village and keeps the customers away. To make matters worse, that evening, Win finds a body in the snow, and it turns out the dead man was a grifter with an old feud with the Crewse family. Soon, Win’s father is implicated in his death. It's not easy to juggle a new-to-her business while solving a crime, but Win is determined to do it. With the help of her quirky best friends and her tight-knit family, she'll catch the ice cold killer before she has a meltdown...
Series
3 primary booksIce Cream Parlor Mystery is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2020 with contributions by Abby Collette.
Reviews with the most likes.
2.5 stars. Finally done with this book and I gotta admit that I skimmed through a large part of the last 1/3. This book was... okay. It threatened to be a train wreck at the beginning but improved a bit in the second half, although I think it was overall just serviceable.
I think the biggest problem I had with this book was how a lot of passages and description felt like unnecessary filler, to the point where I could skip through chapters and simply read the beginning and end of each, and still not miss anything vital. The actual mystery-solving felt fairly linear and dull, and was mainly just the protagonist Bronwyn and her best friend Maisie going around asking people about things, or Googling things to find out new information. with the central action being that straightforward, the rest of the narrative just felt like extra padding to make the book run longer than it should've.
The mystery wasn't as illogical as I thought it was going to be at first, but it was also nothing to shout about. I didn't predict who the killer was going to be in the end, but the book also doesn't give readers hints along the way, which is part of the charm of cozy mysteries - you're supposed to be given as much information as the detective/sleuth is so that if you wanted to, you can solve the mystery along with them. In this case, the plot twist comes by itself, there is absolutely no way you could've solved it before the detective/sleuth does.
I wasn't endeared by any of the characters either. The narrative, which i've already mentioned felt bloated and unnecessary, follows a stream of consciousness first-person perspective but Bronwyn just isn't charming or enigmatic enough to keep my attention for that sort of writing. We also spend huge chunks of time reading about stuff that never seem to matter in the end, like when she invented new ice cream flavours, or when she goes in-depth into her previous life in an ad agency in New York before she moved back to her little village to open the ice cream parlour. Her two best friends were also fairly annoying, particularly Maisie with how much she jumped to conclusions about everyone. To be fair, the book seemed a little self-aware about that, and Bronwyn doesn't exactly trust Maisie's judgement either. it doesn't make it any less annoying when Maisie's going around accusing Ari (the only character of Middle Eastern origin in the village too, if I'm not wrong) of being the murderer with such strong conviction, based off nothing but her own dislike of him and a slight discrepancy that she latches on to as incontrovertible evidence that he must be the killer! She's proven wrong about it at the end but barely seems apologetic about it.
The pacing of the book felt a little off as well. By about 27% into the book, we still hadn't found out who the dead body is, who the prime suspect is, and why we should really care. It takes a long time for the mystery to really get going, which it only really does after maybe the 50ish% mark. I'd enjoy it a lot better if there was a more obvious hook for the readers from earlier on - why should we care about who the real killer is? Why should Bronwyn care, for that matter? If the protagonist has no stake in the mystery for nearly half the book, why would the readers?
Overall, a valiant effort for a debut novel and I hope that the subsequent instalments will see some improvement.
There were several clues, so the murderer wasn't much of a secret, but the fake names made the actual person a surprise. The victim as a bad guy, so the reason why wasn't out of the blue, but the author still managed to surprise me. It was the perfect balance between giving away too much and keeping too many secrets.
I love Win's family and friends around her. She has a great support group! The setting of Chagrin Falls and more specifically Crewse Creamery was perfect. I liked following her around and learning about the town. This was a great start to the series.
The only minor complaint I had was that I difficulty figuring out how old some of the people were. However, I listened to it, so I miss details like that sometimes when I listen.
I can't wait to visit Chagrin Falls again and see what is going on with Win and everyone else.