Books: First Lines Fridays 28th February 2025

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? 

• Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page 
• Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first 
• Finally… reveal the book!

My Pick For This Week

The first lines of the book:

And the book is...

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CNNVH469
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 18, 2023
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 211 pages
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Book synopsis for Grime Doesn't Pay by Jay Larkin

Fired from her boring office position, Jenny lands her dream job at Aunt Audrey’s Angels cleaning agency, where she pursues her twin passions of cleaning houses and solving mysteries.

Inquisitive, resourceful and persistent, the cleaner-turned-sleuth stumbles across mysteries wherever she works, including theft, extortion and fraud. Along the way, she enlists the help of a police detective, a private investigator and an attractive lawyer.

When Jenny herself is framed for a jewellery heist, she needs all her courage and tenacity to outsmart the criminals and reveal the truth.

Where to find Grime Doesn't Pay by Jay Larkin online: 

 

Grime Doesn't Pay Amazon affiliate link

Grime Doesn't Pay on Goodreads

Christmas Themed Cosy Mystery Books

Solve a mystery this holiday season with these amateur sleuths 

I love a good cosy mystery and the holiday season is no different so I've put together a Christmas mystery book list with cosy Christmas murder mysteries and Christmas cosy crime stories.

So if you're looking for holiday cosy mysteries for the festive season you're in the right place! 

Cosy Mysteries for the Holiday Season

Gingerbread and a Murder by Kathleen Suzette

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07NKHWWP7
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 9, 2019
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 137 pages

Gingerbread and a Murder Amazon affiliate link

Add Gingerbread and a Murder to your Goodreads TBR

Christmas should be merry, but when a murder threatens to ruin the festivities, Rainey Daye is on the case. Evidence points to her niece as the killer and Rainey is dismayed to find that the more she questions people, the more the evidence against her niece stacks up. Can she find the real killer before it's too late?

The Naughty List by K.J. Emrick 

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01MSW6ZVO
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ South Coast Publishing; 1st edition 
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 5, 2016
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 188 pages

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Add The Naughty List to your Goodreads TBR

The ghost of a teenage girl... A catastrophic fire... And a devastating secret that shatters Darcy Sweet's world.

It's just another Christmas in Misty Hollow and it's business as usual for Jon and Darcy with a disturbing mystery to solve. They have their very own naughty list.

And they're checking it twice!

The further they dig into the mystery the more secrets they uncover. It seems that everyone has a secret including someone close to Darcy.

The stakes are raised for Jon and Darcy when the mystery turns more deadly.

Will they survive to see Christmas with their family?

The Naughty List is the twentieth book in the Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery series. If you love cozy mysteries with paranormal, and a touch of romance you'll love the Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery series.

Gavels, Tinsel and Murder by Victoria Tait

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B6Y4H13L
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Kanga Press 
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 4, 2022
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 218 pages

Gavels, Tinsel and Murder Amazon affiliate link

Add Gavels, Tinsel and Murder to your Goodreads TBR

A charity ball. A dead guest. Can an amateur sleuth solve the case or will it ruin Christmas for ever?

Aspiring antiques expert, Dotty Sayers, is excited about organising a ball in a Cotswold country house. When a lecture on modern art leads to a kiss under the mistletoe she thinks all her Christmases have come at once. But her festive cheer turns sour when a partygoer is found dead on the dance floor.

The police ask Dotty to help wrap up the case of a stolen painting, but as the search continues she becomes entangled in the murder investigation. When this amateur detective realises the culprit could be a close friend, will she face the Yuletide music?

Can Dotty put aside her personal feelings and herald a murderer?

Gavels, Tinsel and Murder is the fourth book in the charming Dotty Sayers Antique Mystery series. If you like to eat, drink and be merry with a group of entertaining characters, then you’ll be entertained by Victoria Tait’s festive tale.

Gusty Lovers and Cadavers by Anne R. Tan

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00TQET2PK
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 11, 2015
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 245 pages

Gusty Lovers and Cadavers Amazon affiliate link

Add Gusty Lovers and Cadavers to your Goodreads TBR

Gusty winds...and a trail of destruction.

Graduate student Raina Sun is in for a season of mayhem and murder. When she volunteered to take the new foreign exchange student shopping on the last weekend before Christmas, she ended up in a riot for the last hot toy of the season and an abandoned baby. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be a Good Samaritan.

But calling the mysterious phone number in the diaper bag leads to more questions than answers. A strange man claims to be the child's father, and his alleged mother turns up dead.  The local police are more interested in keeping the town's good name out of international news than considering if there's foul play. And to make matters worse, she has less than a week to find his birth parents before the FBI takes over the case.

Raina summons her sleuthing skills to protect this baby and soon discovers everyone has a few skeletons in their closets. With her pimp-cane-toting grandma, she must track down a hidden killer before she becomes the next victim. There's no place for an amateur when it comes to murder...

Deck the Santa by Sue Hollowell

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B6Y1PDK9
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 15, 2022
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 102 pages

Deck the Santa Amazon affiliate link

Add Deck the Santa to your Goodreads TBR

They wanted a peaceful vacation in a wintry location. But when Santa meets an untimely end, can these intrepid investigators save the season?

Chloe Carson is excited for her long-awaited family reunion. But as they gather in a snow-clad village to plan their aging mother’s dream of opening a restaurant, the old lady’s habit of spreading garden gnomes around town leads to a panicked pilgrimage. And the mayhem continues when their visit to the nutcracker museum reveals Kris Kringle has come to an unmerry demise.

With a ton of questions and no answers, Chloe and her cunning cocker spaniel furrow their brows while hunting for clues in the picture-postcard setting. But when the truth about the deceased jolly old elf comes to light, she discovers a line of suspects who all wanted to permanently stuff him into a giftbox.

Can Chloe wrap up a killer before someone else lands on a deadly naughty list?

Deck the Santa is the heartwarming first book in the Murder All the Way Christmas cozy mystery series. If you like colorful characters, pensive pooches, and tinsel-covered fun, then you’ll love Sue Hollowell’s holiday whodunit.

NOTE: This mini-series is best read after the Treehouse Hotel Cozy Mystery series.

Candy Cane Killer by Kate Bell and Kathleen Suzette

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01MDR3HVB
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cozy Baked Murders 
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 25, 2016
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 176 pages

Candy Cane Killer Amazon affiliate link

Add Candy Cane Killer to your Goodreads TBR

Going home to Alabama for Christmas was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be relaxing. What I got instead was a dead neighbor.

When I told my kids and my new boyfriend that Christmas was better with family, and suggested we visit my mother, I didn’t realize we would be investigating a murder. But sometimes dead guys have secrets that get them killed.

My mother refused to believe her neighbor was involved in shenanigans, but when it nearly got me and my daughter killed, she had to admit something fishy was going on next door. Keep an eye on your neighbors, folks.

Santa Claus might be a jolly old elf, but I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if anyone thought I was going to sit by and do nothing about this murder.

Let's Chat!

What Christmas themed cosy mysteries are on your TBR for the festive season? What books would you add to this book list? 

Are you looking for a festive love story? Want a romance read with a Christmas theme? Here's a list of romantic Christmas books to keep you busy over the festive period.

The book synopsis for The Three Deaths of Willa Stannard by Kate Robards

A missing child, a small town’s secrets, and a desperate killer set the stage for a darkly wrought debut novel that will haunt readers long after the last page. Perfect for fans of Julia Heaberlin and Chevy Stevens.

It’s not that they’ve been all that close in the past few years, but sisters Willa and Sawyer Stannard are bonded by the ups and downs of the life they’ve lived with their mercurial single mother. When Willa is found dead in her apartment from an apparent suicide, Sawyer just knows it’s not possible. A cryptic note from the acclaimed broadcast journalist leads police to rule out foul play. Shattered by grief—and obsessed by the idea that her sister’s death was not a suicide—Sawyer plunges into a search for the truth.

When Sawyer learns that Willa was writing an explosive true crime book about the decades-old disappearance of a toddler that rocked a small town hundreds of miles away, she’s even more convinced that Willa’s death is suspicious. Believing it is somehow connected to the research Willa was doing for the book, Sawyer begins to trace her sister’s steps, deep into a community she can’t begin to understand and to a truth that could destroy her as easily as it did Willa.

As she masterfully ratchets up the suspense, Robards never loosens her grip in a debut novel sure to keep readers guessing—and talking.

You might also like: Best Reads of 2022

4 stars

Discussing The Three Deaths of Willa Stannard by Kate Robards

Where to find The Three Deaths of Willa Stannard by Kate Robards online:

 Amazon affiliate link

Goodreads

Want to know what others thought about this book? Check out these book reviews:

• "A welcome debut that’s both a fleet thriller and a pathology of sisterhood at its most harrowing." Read the full review by Kirkus Reviews here.