What fun! Three of the most clever and entertaining cozy mystery writers working today have teamed up to put together 3 stories, each using their signature sleuth, set in the same setting but not overlapping. The cozy reader’s dream.

All three stories are set in the Heartache Motel in Memphis, TN at Christmas time. In Diners Keepers, Loser’s Weepers the crew from Diner Impossible by Terri L. Austin gets in the middle of an Elvis impersonator contest complete with dead bodies. In Quick Sketch by Larissa Reinhart, Cherry Tucker and her boyfriend Todd try to help Todd’s cousin with an illegal poker game and, of course, that’s sure to turn out well! In Dateline Memphis, Richmond Telegraph reporter Nichelle Clarke gets a lot more than she bargained for when she takes a tour of Graceland to get a souvenir for her mom. This last one is my personal favorite. I really love the Nichelle Clarke series.

All three of these are fun, smart and well-written. If you are a fan of any of these authors or a fan of cozies that are just slightly on the sharper edge of cozy, I can definitely recommend this.

Provided by Netgalley for an honest review.

Admittedly, this is the first book in this series, which is now stands at 23, that I have read. This book is number 21 in the series. I realize that will color my view since I don’t have background with this series but I have to wonder if this book is representative of the series. If it is, I’m thrilled that I haven’t wasted my time. If it’s not, then it was a particularly bad introduction. It is a complete miss to me as a mystery lover.

If you want to know all the ills that have been visited on the Virginia Indian tribes, and I’m sure they are have indeed been mistreated in the past, then this is the book for you. If you need to know what there is to know about organic farming methods, then this is the book for you. If you want to know how evil capitalists are, then this is the book for you. If you want a good mystery, move along.

It has a promising start. The first murder victim is found hung up as a scarecrow, shortly before Halloween. Of course, our MC Harry is one of the people that find him and is determined to solve the case even though she is repeatedly warned by others to stop or be careful. The mystery just really doesn’t go anywhere and we’re certainly not given the clues to solve the case. It seems as if the mystery is just a reason for the author to state her worldviews. I don’t like being hit over the head with a hammer when I’m just looking for some entertainment.

I suspect that if I had read the other books in this series, I might be quite fond of these characters. Meeting them brand new, not so much. They come across as self-righteous and self-important.

By the way, the title has nothing to do with the story. There is no litter of anything. I assumed there might be kittens or something but there isn’t. Just 2 full grown cats and a dog.

There are obviously a lot of fans of this series or there wouldn’t be so many books. So, is it worth my time to go back and try an earlier book or should I just move along?

I received this through Netgalley and appreciated the opportunity to read and review it.

Our third visit to South Cove is as fun as the first two. Jill and her fun cast of friends and family are back and it's time for the holidays. South Cove is set to begin its holiday festivities when two things intervene. The mayor and a murder.

The mayor has made two decisions that don't sit well with everyone. He's given his wife the job of coordinating the festivities, which Darla from the winery has always done, and he's agreed for the town to participate in a program of giving work experience to clients of a social service agency. Neither of these sit well with the business owners, including Jill. When murder is the result of this second decision, of course Jill gets pulled right into the middle of it.

I love holiday settings. This one covers both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love a romance that isn't filled with angst. Jill and Greg provide this. I like a good mystery that isn't immediately apparent but does have clues. The location is fun and the cast of characters are interesting and fairly realistic. This is just fun escapist reading and I think this one reads a little quicker than the other two have. I have to say I do love the covers for this series.  I'm a sucker for a good cover.

I do hope the resident psychic stays extremely minor (which she has so far) or goes away and I do think Greg, who is the police detective, needs to quit sharing quite so much with Jill. Those two issues are minor and don't affect my enjoyment of the story. I'll be very excited when a fourth book in this series comes out.

I received this book from Netgalley and appreciated the opportunity to read and review it.

This is the good kind of American cozy mysterye. The kind that's light but not fluffy. The kind that has romance but it doesn't overwhelm the story.  The kind that gives you clues but doesn't give up all its secrets right away. It has fun and friendship and family and bad guys and unexpected good guys. 

I met this cast of characters in Guidebook to Murder, the first in this series.  They've come along nicely in this second book.  Jill, the owner of Coffee, Books and More is has started dating Greg, the chief detective of South Cover, a tourist town on the California coast.  Her kooky aunt, her best friend Amy, and Toby, the part-time cop, part-time barrista are all back in good form.

As Jill is attempting to verify that the old wall found in her back yard is the original Spanish mission to the area, she runs into opposition from Craig who is the manager of The Castle, the biggest historical attraction in town.  He doesn't want business or tourism dollars diverted away from his site.  When he's found dead, Jill looks like a pretty good suspect. As with all good cozy heroines, she must set out to prove her innocence.

The only nit-pick I have with this book is that I do think the cop-boyfriend lets her into the case a bit too much.  Just didn't ring true sometimes.  And as with most cozy heroines, she gets warned by said cop-boyfriend to stay out of the case but just can't do it.  If she didn't pursue it, there wouldn't be a book I guess so there's probably no way around that one. These are my only complaints with a book that gave me much enjoyment to read and I'm ready to start book number 3.

I received this book from Netgalley and appreciate opportunity to give it an honest review.

I'm a huge fan of cozy mysteries but wow, this was just a complete miss for me. I'm still not sure if it was meant to be making fun of the genre or it really was just a really bad story.

Rory, a manager in a mega-petstore, comes to the town of Destiny to find out whether the superstition about bad luck from walking under ladders is true. Her boyfriend had walked under one and died shortly after. Yes, that is the premise. These type of mysteries are known for not having the deepest plots in literature but really? Whether or not you get bad luck from walking under a ladder is the premise? The town of Destiny makes it's living off being the superstition capital of the world. The tourist trade in people interested in superstitions is how all the town makes it's money. Every business in town centers around one superstition or another and it you are sick of the word "superstition" by now, you'll be pulling your hair out by the end of the book because it's used in almost every other sentence.

When Rory gets there she takes her dog Pluckie (the word "Pluckie" is another word that will have driven you out of your gourd by the end of the book)to a pet store which is full of, not surprisingly, superstition-based pet items. I bet you didn't know those existed. I sure didn't but I do now. But I digress. Rory and Pluckie find the owner of the store on the floor in the back room in some type of health emergency so they call an ambulance to get her to the hospital. From this point on, having done what any normal human would do, Rory and Pluckie are announced to be the luckiest things that ever walked the earth.

So now the owner of this pet store is in the hospital and asks Rory, an person she doesn't know from Adam, to manage her store for her while she's incapacitated. The next day there's a murder, Rory and Pluckie discover it, she does everything the police tell her not to, spends a lot of time mad at people when they've done nothing wrong, and discovers that pets are welcome everywhere in Destiny, even restaurants. Nothing about the plot makes sense to me. Why would you ask someone you've known 12 hours to take over your business, your sole livelihood? Why does everyone allow this absolute stranger to come into their town and act so arrogantly to them? Why does the public school system of Destiny teach superstition in their curriculum? These are the bigger mysteries to me than who killed whom. I seriously considered throwing my Kindle across the room several times and I love my Kindle. This story did not require suspension of disbelief. It required taking your brain out and leaving it on the table.

I received this book through Netgalley in return for an honest review.