First in the series and a very good one. I like the characters and their family stories. I'm looking forward to the next one. ( )

Anna Winslow has lived on Quarry Island, ME all her life. So has her husband, Burt. Burt and his brother Carl are fishermen, trapping lobster and netting fish for a living. It's dangerous work, but they are 4th generation lobstermen. It's in their blood. Anna loves the feeling of community and family on the small island. Island roots run deep. But then a letter Anna receives in the mail changes her whole life. She has a half-sister....one she never knew about. On the day she drives to Portland to meet her sister Izzie, her brother-in-law Carl drowns at sea. Turns out he was murdered. Izzie travels to Quarry Island to help the family cope, and ends up investigating Carl's death with Anna.

I loved this story! It's not just a cozy, but great women's fiction as well. Anna and Izzie have to learn how to become sisters amid the Winslow family grieving a murdered member. Turns out, the sisters make a great amateur sleuthing duo and help each other make some important life decisions as well. The background theme of life on a Maine island and the life of fishermen didn't overpower the mystery but added depth to it. The plot moved at a nice pace, with plenty of suspects and surprises. I wasn't quite sure how the story was going to end until I got there. All in all, a nice start for a new cozy series. I can't wait to find out what the second book in the Maine Murder Mystery series will bring! There are some yummy recipes included at the end of Death and Pot of Chowder, as well! I can't wait to try a couple of them!

Cornelia Kidd is a pseudonym for Maine author Lea Wait.

**I voluntarily read an advance readers copy of this book from Crooked Lane Books via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.** ( )

Fun fast easy reading! Breathe in that sea air walk along the shoreline and get involved in the lives of the islanders off the coast of New England! ( )

*I received this book for free from Cozy Mystery Review Crew, which is a Facebook group, in exchange for an honest review on it*

Whenever I get a book for review (read “for free”) I always want to enjoy it so much. I want to be able to glowingly say I loved it and only write positive things about it. I want to build it up so much. Sometimes that isn’t plausible or realistic though. Some books are just not a book for you. This was one of those books. I will, however, say that I was able to get through the entire book because of it being a mystery. There is a part of my brain that will forever want to know “whodunit” and that part of my brain pushed me forward even though I wasn’t engaged as much as I would have liked with the story.

I want to state first that I am fairly new to the world of cozy mystery books, I grew up on television shows like “Murder, She Wrote” that are obviously similar. Recently, I finished a buddy read that made me recognize that I had a deep appreciation for the mystery genre and especially the cozy mystery format. Cozy mysteries with their small town relationships, their wholesomeness (even with murder being involved), and just that weird warmth that you get from such a book. I love seeing a world that I once was a part of when I lived in a smaller town. I understand those close knit communities and honestly love seeing them in print. The issue here though is a cozy mystery book has two words within its genre title. Cozy and mystery. These elements should be balanced. In this book, however, it feels that for far too many pages we were stuck in the cozy and not enough of the mystery. It felt that the characters that were supposed to be investigating the death in the book were more invested in other matters or simply acquiring knowledge through people literally coming to their door. The fun of a cozy mystery and other mystery novels, to me, is when the character goes sleuthing to discover clues. To gather information and often times this means the main character snooping in areas that maybe they shouldn’t be. Putting their life in a little bit of danger during the process. In cozies, the danger tends to be a little more mundane, but it is still there at times. This seemed to be lacking in that element until the “reveal” part of the book. Up to that moment it was like everyone was just talking and not really trying to figure out the murder. This book was definitely more cozy than mystery and that was my chief complaint with it.

Another issue that I had with this book was that characters, especially Anna, didn’t seem to respond in ways that I would think most people would in the situations that they were placed in. No one just tells people everything and that felt like what these characters did throughout the book. Anna didn’t seem to understand that she was the mother of Jake, her son, and that she was allowed to discipline him and say you are not going to respond to me in certain ways. No, I am not a parent, but let me say that if I was I would never respond the way that Anna does in this book. It was frustrating to read. I even tried to analyze it as that I was never a parent, but seriously there are moments where I couldn’t move past it. Many times I felt that I wanted Izzie, her new sister, to say something to her. Having a moment where the kid is mad and screaming he doesn’t want to talk to her would have felt a bit more organic than what happens within this book. It felt like she was treating her child like a roommate! Yes, this upset me greatly.

Now, I did enjoy the character of Izzie and her overall storyline. It is weird to say, but I think I would have enjoyed the story if it had been from her viewpoint. Maybe my issue is that Anna wasn’t the narrator I wanted in this tale. I wanted the perspective of Izzie, especially because there are several moments that Izzie’s perspective would have been interesting to see. Also the narrator seemed to use her a couple of times to “time warp” the plot basically. The character would go off and solve something for the case, hear something, find something, or etc, but always off the page basically. This got frustrating after the 3 time it occurred. I want some of those things on the page in scenes. Izzie, even though she is used in this manner, is still by far the best character to me. She has dreams, hopes, aspirations, and so much more. I loved that she was able to give some of that to the main character as well. I feel that in another book in the series that we would learn so much more about Izzie. There seems to be elements about her and her life that are still a mystery. I fear, however, that there will not be more books to this particular series. The writer has announced that they have been diagnosed with cancer. Finding this out made it slightly hard to review the book, since I had not had such a pleasant experience with it. I realized, however, that I was supposed to give an honest review. This is my honest feelings about the book, but I should leave it with this. I would read another book, if there was one. I would want to find out what happens to Izzie and that makes me realize that there was some positive to this book. I believe that other cozy mystery readers, that have been around the cozy block more than me, would enjoy this book. They would enjoy the focus on the cozy elements. This book does have an audience. I just wasn’t the intended audience for this one. ( )

Death and a Pot of Chowder by Cornelia Kidd is the first A Maine Murder Mystery. Anna Winslow lives on Quarry Island in Maine with her husband, Burt and son, Jake. She is surprised when she receives a letter from Isabel “Izzie” Jordan stating that she is her half-sister and would like to meet. A couple of weeks later, Anna is in Portland to meet up with Izzie. They arrive at their lunch destination when Anna gets a call from Burt regarding his brother, Carl. Carl’s boat was found adrift and he is missing. Anna and Izzie rush to Quarry Island where the search is ongoing. Later that night, Carl’s body is discovered, but he did not die from drowning. Detective Jonas Preston of the Maine State Police is on the case and they soon learn that the evidence is mounting against Burt. Anna and Izzie band together to track down Carl’s killer.

Death and a Pot of Chowder is set on Quarry Island, Maine. The author provided detailed descriptions of the island and its history. Anna is thirty-two and has been married to Burt since she was eighteen years old. Burt is a fourth-generation lobsterman and expects his son to follow in his footsteps. Anna grew up on the same street. Her mother and grandmother still live in the house (close knit family). It is a place where people can leave their doors unlocked and children can roam freely (until someone murdered Carl). The author did a terrific job at setting the stage for A Maine Murder Mystery series. I like how the author brought the two sisters together and their plans for the future. I loved how Anne of Green Gables was woven into the story (one of my favorite books). I thought the mystery was simple. I easily identified the guilty party. Anna and Izzie work together to figure out Carl’s movement before he was killed. They question various people and get assistance from retired detective and neighbor, Rob Erickson. I could have done with less speculation and repetition. There needed to be more action which would have helped the pacing (which was slow at times). My rating for Death and a Pot of Chowder is 3.5 out of 5 stars. I found Jake to be extremely annoying. I realize his attitude and behavior are realistic for a fourteen-year-old, but I did get tired of his yelling and door slamming. Izzie’s love of cooking comes through as she describes how she likes to create dishes and execute them. There are various cookbooks mentioned and there are recipes included at the end of the book. There are many engaging cozy moments as the two sisters bond, explore the island, cook, and plan for the future. Death and a Pot of Chowder is nicely written, has good characters, rustic setting and plenty of food. Death and a Pot of Chowder captured my interest and I will be picking up the next A Maine Murder Mystery. ( )