Book Review: Crowned and Moldering

Crowned and Moldering by Kate Carlisle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely love watching home and furniture restoration videos – nearly everything I subscribe to on YouTube falls in that category. I also enjoy cozy mysteries, they’re the perfect antidote for a stressful day. Having said that, there’s absolutely no way I would pass by a cozy mystery series called “Fixer Upper Mystery”. Just in case there was any doubt as to how to hook me, the author gives her mysteries punny names. I mean really. I never stood a chance.

Crowned and Moldering was a delight from start to finish. Set in Lighthouse Cove, a quaint seaside town on the California coast, the setting provided everything I wished for; everyone in town knows everyone, there’s a mysterious old Victorian era mansion undergoing renovation, I believe I counted five gorgeous, hunky guys among the town’s population, and everyone remembers their high school days together quite clearly. Every school had a bully, and in this town, he’s never changed his ways. We meet the schools faculty and staff too, as we accumulate a well-rounded group of possible suspects in this unusual, poignant crime. As a bonus, there’s a handsome famous author in the middle of the mayhem, too!

As the murder mystery unfolds and progresses (I’m not going to tell you the plot or specifics, because I would be robbing you of the joy of discovery), we learn more and more about the townsfolk, the high school, past history, past relationships, and precisely how to build a solar-paneled parking lot. Construction, restoration, romance, nostalgia, food, cute pets… it’s all here.

Kate Carlisle did a great job with the pacing and progression of this mystery. I was still picking up clues and being introduced to new situations right up to the final pages of the book. By then, of course, I had it all figured out… OR DID I?

Crowned and Moldering is mandatory reading for cozy mystery lovers… and the DIY gang shouldn’t pass it by, either. Five stars!