Take the Honey and Run is the first book in a new cozy series by Jennie Marts. Released 18th July 2023 by Crooked Lane Books, it's 336 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
The author is an experienced and prolific writer with a number of series, and this is a promising start to a new one. It's firmly in the cozy subgenre, and includes an amateur sleuth (whose day job is writing mysteries) trying to keep an innocent family member from being unfairly jailed (her grandmother, no less), an eccentric collection of small town characters, a handsome sheriff with whom the MC has some history, some snark, and the requisite honey themed recipes at the back of the book as a bonus.
Although it's not at all derivative, fans of Nancy Coco and Amanda Flower will likely find a lot to like here. There's a lot of humor, small town atmosphere, a well constructed mystery, and sympathetic characters. The bonus recipes at the back of the book are offered as written by characters appearing in the book. They're not overly fussy or complicated, and all seem appetizing. They include recipes for cookies, cheesy puff pastry, cake, banana bread, ricotta cheese dip, and flavored honey.
Four stars. The denouement and resolution were a trifle outlandish, but not overly so for the subgenre. There is no currently publicly available information about a release date for the second book, but the author has several ongoing series, so it could be a while. Happily, this book doesn't end on a cliffhanger, so it works well as a standalone read.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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