Title: Bridal Shower MurderAuthor: Leslie Meier Series: Lucy Stone Mystery #31
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Publisher: Kensington Books
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of pages: 320
Published: March 25, 2025
My Rating: 4 Stars
DESCRIPTION:
When her daughter gets engaged in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, reporter Lucy Stone finds herself feeling like a steamed lobster while dealing with her future son-in-law’s family—and a summer bridal shower that leads to murder . . .Lucy Stone is thrilled about her youngest daughter Zoe's engagement to Chad, a rising minor league baseball player with dreamy eyes and plenty of Southern charm. Yet there’s no denying the whirlwind romance has turned Lucy’s life upside down in more ways than one—especially when she learns about Chad’s complicated background and close ties to Tinker’s Cove. The secrets and rumors are enough to send her investigative reporting instincts into overdrive . . .
Trouble really crashes in the moment Lucy meets her in-laws-to-be, Penny and Nate Nettleton. Persuasive Penny proves to be intent on taking over wedding preparations, even arranging a Tuscan-themed bridal shower before Zoe publicly announces her engagement. It’s a shock when the event goes off without a hitch. But the real shock comes when prominent guest Hetty Furness, the head of the Tinker’s Cove Historical Society, goes missing—only to be found dead, the victim of a brutal murder . . .
Lucy is determined to reveal who committed the vicious crime as she navigates her new reality with the Nettletons. Racing to determine if Hetty’s extensive knowledge of local history—and hidden scandals—led to her demise, Lucy soon realizes she’ll need to put her sleuthing talents to work like never before to guarantee wedding bells to ring for Zoe and Chad . . . and that she survives to see her daughter walk down the aisle!
Link to purchase the book
MY THOUGHTS:Overwhelmed with surprise, Lucy Stone receives a phone call from her daughter Zoe, informing her that Zoe will be bringing a friend named Chad home. However, Zoe fails to provide Lucy with any details about this young man. As a reporter, Lucy finds it relatively straightforward to conduct some research on Chad. The revelation that Chad is a minor league baseball player does not provide Lucy with sufficient information to form an opinion about him. Additionally, as Zoe is Lucy’s youngest daughter, her husband Bill also harbors significant reservations.
What else is Lucy to do? Think about planning the wedding and bridal shower of course. However, her pushy friend Janice, best friend Sue and the to-be groom’s mother are all vying to throw the bridal shower. This definitely creates tension. This situation is further complicated by Zoe and Chad’s desire to maintain the secrecy of their engagement.
As Lucy Stone’s mind drifted from wedding shower thoughts, a chilling murder shook the town. Overwhelmed by grief and empathy for the victim, Lucy’s unwavering determination to uncover Hettie’s killer remains unshaken. Amidst the pursuit of justice, Lucy is acutely aware that the wedding day promises to be fraught with challenges, particularly due to the impending arrival of in-laws.
I have loved this series from the very start, having read all the previous books as well as the novellas. It has been enjoyable watching Lucy go from being a young mother who now has four adult children, as well as a grandson. Having been a reporter for years, looking for that next byline sometimes came with its own problems. And, don’t think that Tinker’s Cove is a sleepy little town. Murder after murder has taken place over the years, as this is usually the case with cozy mysteries. Factor in the deeper issues touched on in this latest entry, Bridal Shower Murder was an excellent read.
Many thanks to Kensington Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
I started writing in the late ‘80s when I was attending graduate classes at Bridgewater State College. I wanted to become certified to teach high school English and one of the required courses was Writing and the Teaching of Writing. My professor suggested that one of the papers I wrote for that course was good enough to be published and I sent it off to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’s Department of First Stories. I got $100 for the story and I’ve been writing ever since. The teaching, however, didn’t work out.
My books draw heavily on my experience as a mother of three and my work as a reporter for various weekly newspapers on Cape . My heroine, Lucy Stone, is a reporter in the fictional town of Tinker’s Cove, Maine, where she lives in an old farmhouse (quite similar to mine on Cape Cod!) with her restoration carpenter husband Bill and four children. As the series has progressed the kids have grown older, roughly paralleling my own family. We seem to have reached a point beyond which Lucy cannot age–my editor seems to want her to remain forty-something forever, though I have to admit I personally am dying to write “Menopause is Murder!”
I usually write one Lucy Stone mystery every year and as you can tell, my editor likes me to feature the holidays in my books. Of course Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year and my newest mystery “Eggnog Murder,” is included in an anthology with two other Christmas novellas by Barbara Ross and Lee Hollis. I’ve long been a fan of the classic English country house mystery, and was a faithful watcher of “Downton Abbey,” so I couldn’t resist trying to write one. I think I succeeded rather well, if I do say so myself, with “British Manor Murder,” which came out in October, 2016.
My books are classified as “cozies” but a good friend insists they are really “comedies of manners” and I do enjoy expressing my view of contemporary American life.
Now that the kids are grown — we have five fabulous grandchildren — my husband and I are enjoying dividing our time between Braintree and Cape Cod, along with our cat, Sylvester.
Find Her: Goodreads / Twitter / Web