The High Tide Murder is the sixth Shell House cozy mystery by Emylia Hall. Released 4th Nov 2025 by Amazon on their Thomas & Mercer imprint, it's 400 pages and is available in paperback, 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. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book (and the others in the series) are currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free.
This is a fun and engaging series. The characters, including main protagonist, widow Ally Bright, are rendered believably and the author gives readers realistic and natural dialogue and interaction throughout. This installment sees MC Ally and (non-romantic) partner Jayden investigating a sudden death at a hotel which may have ties to a decades old cold case. This book is a bit of a destination mystery, set in a posh hotel resort, and features main characters outside their usual settings. The plot is well engineered and the clues are fair play and cleverly presented.
Although not as adept as the inimitable Ann Cleeves' Vera books, fans of the latter will find a lot to enjoy with this series. The settings (the Cornish coast and Northumberland respectively) feature prominently in both, and both authors have a virtuoso command of description and setting.
Four stars. It continues to develop and go from strength to strength. It would make a good choice for public library acquisition, home reading, and gifting. With 7 books extant, and an eighth due out 4th quarter 2026, it would be a good candidate for a long binge or buddy read. Although it works very well as a standalone, readers should be aware it's a continuing series and be prepared for small spoilers if read out of order.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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