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Thursday, May 27, 2021

Book Review: Murder on the Beach by Various Authors (Destination Murders Collection #1)

Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Creative mysteries all featuring the beach
Cons: I’m not currently at the beach right now.
The Bottom Line:
A trip to the beach
Eight mysterious stories
Sure to entertain



Beach Reads to Enjoy Anywhere

Living in Southern California, I think of the beach as a fun, relaxing place to go.  And, while that may be true the majority of the time, the beach can be dangerous if not outright deadly.  Want proof?  It’s all right here in Murder on the Beach.

This book is a collection of eight short stories by some fantastic authors.  They are a mix of stand-alone stories, like “A Tale of Two Sisters” by Barb Goffman, which featuring a constantly disappearing family heirloom at a beach side wedding reception, and stories with series characters, like “Frugal Lissa Takes a Break,” which finds Ritter Ames’s heroine searching for a killer after her dog discovers a body buried in the sand.  In between, we get a deadly frog legs cooking contest, a ring half buried in the sand, and a trip to Mexico plagued by accidents.

I was fairly confident I would enjoy this collection since I was already familiar with six of the eight authors included here before I picked it up.  I’m happy to say I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest.  Each story features great characters and a story that kept me engaged the entire way through.  All these stories can be read as stand-alones whether they are part of a series or not.  That’s a good thing since I was only familiar with the characters in one of the stories before I picked up this book.  And the two authors I hadn’t read before?  I definitely need to check them out in the future.

The one thing these stories all have in common is the beach.  But even then, the beaches vary.  While we stay in North America, we don’t visit the same beach twice.  That was part of the fun – seeing where we would be visiting next.

Short stories can vary in length, but these were fairly consistent.  Each story took me roughly 40 minutes to read, with some being shorter or longer.  That means you get a lot of story bang for your money.

This collection officially releases tomorrow, May 28th,  Just in time for Memorial Day reading.  And it is still specially priced if you act now.  It’s only 99 cents today, but will go up to its regular price of $3.99 on release day.

This is the first in a series of Destination Mysteries short story collections.  Based on this book, I’m already packing my bags for the next vacation.

If you are looking for the ultimate beach read for the beach this summer, Murder on the Beach will be perfect for you.  Even if you stay home, you’ll enjoy these eight great mini-vacations.

Included stories:

“Frugal Lissa Takes a Break” by Ritter Ames
“Beach Party Body” by Lucy Carol
“Coast Busters” by Karen Cantwell
“A Tale of Two Sisters” by Barb Goffman
“Cabo San Loco” by Eleanor Cawood Jones
“Footprints in the Sand” by Shari Randall
“Bay of Reckoning” by Shawn Reilly Simmons
“Frog Days of Summer” by Cathy Wiley

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.

3 comments:

  1. We're so glad you enjoyed it, Mark!! Thanks so much!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was already looking forward to reading it but your opinion usually matches mine so even more excited for its arrival.

    ReplyDelete

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