These Loaves of Bread Aren’t Deadly to Your Waistline. They’re Just Deadly
The world of publishing has to try to get seasonal books out ahead of time so readers have them on hand to read at the right time of year. It makes the publishing schedules a bit weird, however. For example, we have Irish Soda Bread Murder, a St. Patrick’s Day themed novella anthology, coming out on Christmas Eve. Yes, I waited to read it until I was done with my Christmas cozies for the year, but then I dove in.
The title story comes from Carlene O’Connor and once again features the characters from her short-lived Home to Ireland series. It’s just a week before St. Patrick’s Day, and Tara Meehan’s uncle Johnny is hosting a local psychic fair and bake sale to raise money for charity. Unfortunately, one of the psychic’s drops dead after eating from a tin of the Irish soda bread that Uncle Johnny made for the sale. Can Tara find the pattern to catch the killer.
This is now my third novella with these characters, and I found it fun to be back with them. I did find the suspects a little hard to keep straight, mainly who had which psychic specialty, but I was still able to follow the story okay. The climax was fun and wrapped things up well. There is a timeline issue in the story, but it doesn’t impact the mystery at all. We also get a recipe for Irish soda bread at the end. Overall, this is a fun story to kick off the collection and a nice chance to catch up with these characters.
Next up, Peggy Ehrhart presents An Irish Recipe for Murder, a story featuring the characters from her Knits and Nibble Mysteries. This St. Patrick’s Day, the Arborville Advocate is sponsoring an Irish soda bread baking contest. The judge is a councilman, but shortly after he samples the first bread, he dies. Since Pamela Paterson’s friend and neighbor, Bettina, came up with this idea, she feels responsible. So, Pamela begins to dig in. Can she figure out what happened?
This is my second time visiting these characters, and I enjoyed getting to spend more time with them. I did feel like some of the theming got in the way of the mystery, but maybe I would feel differently if I were interested in the craft and history of needlework. As far as regular characters go, we really only spent time with Pamela and Bettina, and I enjoyed both of them, and the suspects were good. We get a couple of recipes and a crafting project at the end, as well. I’m still interested in trying this series, but I feel like the series fans will be most interested in this story than readers who don’t yet know the characters.
Finally, comes the reason I picked up this book – Liz Ireland’s entry. Mrs. Claus and the Sinister Soda Bread Man features characters we love from her Mrs. Claus Mysteries but in a different setting. April Claus has received news that her inn back home in Oregon has flooded thanks to a burst pipe. Since she can’t reach her caretaker, she travels down from Santaland with three elf friends. They arrive just a few days before St. Patrick’s Day, and the elves are quickly recruited to become leprechauns during the festivities, designed to draw tourists during what is typically the off season. But it’s the inn that has April most concerned. Yes, there is flooding, but there’s also a strange smell, weird sounds, and when her caretaker shows up, he’s acting bizarre. All that’s before she returns to find a dead body on the premises. Can she figure out what is going on?
Since I love this series, I was really looking forward to this story. I feel like it tried to do too much. As a result, the mystery felt under developed. It took a while to really get going only to have a rushed ending. However, I was still having plenty of fun. Watching the elves react to the human world made me laugh out loud multiple times. Another subplot was lots of fun as well. Unlike the first two novellas, there are no extras here, which is fine since what we got is fun. Fans will enjoy seeing what happens when these characters leave their usual North Pole setting.
Each of these stories is a little over 100 pages, so they are fairly quick reads if you are looking for something to read in a sitting or two, but when you combine all of them together, you get the equivalent of a full book.
Reading these novellas has worked. I’m hoping to give the other two authors a try. If you are curious about any of these series, this is a fun way to get a sample of what they are like. And the authors do a good job of setting up the characters in the story so you can jump in here if this is your introduction.
Whether you devour this book now or wait to savor it in March, you’ll find plenty of fun and mayhem in Irish Soda Bread Murder with these three stories.
Enjoy more fun with the rest of the Mrs. Claus Mysteries.
NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.
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