A- #BookReview: Summers End by Juneau Black

A- #BookReview: Summers End by Juneau BlackSummers End (A Shady Hollow Mystery, #5) by Juneau Black
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, cozy mystery
Series: Shady Hollow #5
Pages: 288
Published by Vintage on July 9, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

A unique take on dark academia, featuring everyone's favorite vulpine sleuth, Vera Vixen.

It's late August in Shady Hollow, and the heat has intrepid reporter Vera Vixen eager to get away. She agrees to chaperone the annual field trip to Summers End, an ancient tomb built by an early woodland culture, along with her good friend Lenore Lee to come with her.

But when the two enter the tomb, they find bones that are distinctly more...modern. Digging a little deeper, Vera and Lenore discover that the deceased was involved in a recent excavation at the site, and very unpopular with their colleagues. Now the fox and raven have to delve into the dark world of academia and archaeology to determine which creature thought they were clever enough to get away with the perfect murder.

My Review:

Shady Hollow is just the kind of small town that makes small-town cozy mysteries so very cozy. Which makes it very similar to Elyan Hollow in yesterday’s book. But with a singular difference.

All the characters in Shady Hollow are animals. Which doesn’t mean that they aren’t people – because they absolutely are. Even if, or especially because, their species and its characteristics allows the story to overtly display certain facets of their personalities that have to be revealed a bit more obliquely in, let’s call them more traditional, cozy fantasies.

Take Vera Vixen for example. Vera is our protagonist, our amateur detective, and an ace investigative reporter for the local newspaper, the Shady Hollow Herald. The inquisitiveness and cunning of her fox species are assets in her chosen profession – no matter how much her boyfriend, Shady Hollow Police Chief Orville Braun – an actual bear – would prefer she be a bit more mouse-like and keep herself out of trouble.

Part of the magic of the series and the immersion in the place and the characters is that after the first few pages the human reader’s mind glosses over speculation about any details of how a romantic relationship between a fox and a bear would actually work – and what any resulting children would look like if there were any.

(I’ve always pictured those potential children as resembling the Cratchit Family in The Muppet Christmas Carol; the boys took after dad (Kermit) and the girls took after mom (Miss Piggy) – but your imagination may take you down other paths.)

This entry in the series – after the Halloween short Phantom Pond – takes Vera out of her familiar Shady Hollow setting and away from her police bear beau and takes her – along with her best friend, Lenore Lee and a whole, literal, actual boatload of students up the river to Summers End to observe the phenomenon for which the famous archaeological and astronomical site was built back in the Woodlands’ equivalent of prehistory.

So this is supposed to be an educational trip for the students. Vera and Lenore are along as chaperones – and to get a bit of a vacation in a picturesque little town as well. Vera even has a student of her own, as she’s agreed to mentor a budding reporter for the week.

Vera felt a bit out of her element trying to take care of – and ride herd on – a bunch of tweens and teens. But she finds herself needing all of her investigative skills when the group’s sunrise view of the Summers End phenomenon is obstructed – by a corpse.

Naturally – at least for Vera – she can’t stop herself from bringing her reporter’s eye and investigative mind to the grisly sight – even though that’s the last thing that the local police want.

She’s sure she’s helping the investigation. But Police Chief Buckthorn acts an awful lot as if what Vera is really doing is interfering with his coverup. It looks like Buckthorn has already decided who the murderer was – or perhaps that’s will be. And Vera can’t let that miscarriage of justice stand, not when his prime suspect is her best friend’s sister.

Escape Rating A-: This series has always struck me as being a bit of the case of the bear dancing – and pardon the pun about Orville Braun. But seriously, although the series NEVER takes itself too seriously, the whole thing has always struck me as something that one is not surprised is done well but that it’s done AT ALL.

But in this case it very much IS done well. Not that there isn’t a touch – or sometimes more than a touch – of whimsy involved. Howsomever, the heart of the story is ALWAYS the mystery, and the animal natures of the characters are very well played to poke at the vagaries and idiosyncrasies of human behavior – which are, of course, legion.

This particular entry in the series also struck me as being at the intersection of two points that I never expected to see intersect.

Summers End, the archaeological, anthropological and astronomical site, is guaranteed to make readers think of Stonehenge, possibly combined with something like Sutton Hoo to pull in the ancient burial ground aspect.

That combination allows for a whole lot of fascinating story points. There is a thread of dark academia running through the mystery, as Summers End is a huge archaeological site, there are still plenty of digs going on. Which means that the professors at the local university are constantly fighting over sites and rights and theories and tenure.

At the same time, as with any archaeological site, there are always artifacts being uncovered along with the temptations towards theft and fraud that follow. As do tourists who both want to visit the site AND take home a souvenir – legal or not.

But the part of the story that sticks – as the entries in this series often do – is the bit at that strange intersection. Because what gets found in Summers End – besides the murder and the mystery and cleanup of a whole lot of good old-fashioned – but not that old – corruption, is an old story that combines the famous but probably apocryphal quote from Margaret Mead that the earliest sign of civilization is “A healed femur” and the quip a tour guide at Stonehenge once made that the monument was built during the “loony Neolithic” because of just how much of the gross domestic product of the civilization that built it had to be devoted to something that provided neither food nor shelter nor seemingly anything else that a really primitive society would have needed really, seriously badly every single day.

So on the surface this is a murder mystery, a murder that happens for very prosaic and common reasons. The way that Vera and her friends pull together for the investigation is, as always, a whole lot of fun with just the right touch of intrigue and danger.

But it’s the uplift at the end, the way that the stories and legends of Summers End – and of the species who came together to build it at such an early period, and what that meant for the future of the region – that raises the whole thing just that bit higher while not taking a single jot of compulsive, page-turning, edge of the seat reading tension from the mystery and its fitting resolution.

Which is a big part of what makes me love the Shady Hollow series and leaves me always looking forward to the next. As I am right this minute.

Review: Evergreen Chase by Juneau Black + Giveaway

Review: Evergreen Chase by Juneau Black + GiveawayEvergreen Chase: A Shady Hollow Mystery Short Story by Juneau Black
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: ebook
Genres: cozy fantasy, cozy mystery, holiday fiction
Series: Shady Hollow #3.5
Pages: 32
Published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard on November 30, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads

It’s the winter solstice in Shady Hollow, that magical time of year when creatures of all shapes and sizes come together to honor the season and eat as much pie as possible. Reporter Vera Vixen is eager to experience her first holiday in town and is especially looking forward to the unveiling of the solstice tree. But then disaster strikes. The year’s tree—the tallest in the forest—has disappeared without a trace. Can Vera, her best friend, Lenore, and Deputy Orville Braun find the tree and save the season? Or will this year’s solstice be especially dark?

My Review:

Today is Black Friday in the U.S., that unofficial holiday after the official Thanksgiving Day holiday.

Traditionally, this was the day when holiday decorating ‘officially’ kicked off, and anyplace that had not already started playing Xmas carols started doing so with a vengeance. So, as this feels like the right day, at least to me, to start reviewing holiday books, I’m kicking off my holiday season with this Shady Hollow winter solstice story.

This is explicitly not a Christmas story, just as Phantom Pond was not explicitly a Halloween story. The historical and religious underpinnings of both of those holidays in our world don’t exist in the animal-centric world of Shady Hollow.

But that doesn’t mean that something like those holidays wouldn’t, doesn’t or hasn’t arisen in other cultures – and that particularly applies to the winter solstice. Many, many traditions have holidays around the solstice, and Shady Hollow wouldn’t be exceptional in marking the shortest day of the year – even if they might be a bit exceptional in just how they do that marking.

Along with the touch of mystery that makes the series so very much fun!

The tradition in Shady Hollow is to ‘walk’ the specially chosen Solstice tree from the surrounding woods to the center of town, where it will be decorated and feted and brightly lit to chase away the darkness of the longest night.

The trees are chosen decades in advance and tended lovingly by specially appointed treekeepers until their appointed day as the center of the whole town’s attention and celebration.

But someone has stolen this year’s tree – all FIFTY FEET of it – the night before its celebratory walk. The whole town is enraged, incensed, and practically in mourning over the loss of their tree.

It will take the efforts of every animal in town, from Police Bear Orville Braun to ace investigative reporter Vera Vixen to all the birds around town, led by night-owl Professor Heidegger and bookstore owner Lenore the Raven to find the tree in time.

The longest night comes early in Shady Hollow, and time is running out.

Escape Rating B: Shady Hollow may sound a bit twee, but it’s really a LOT more like Zootopia – at least if the movie had been set in Judy Hopp’s rural Bunnyburrow instead of Nick Wilde’s big city. A reflection that reporter Vera Vixen frequently makes herself, as she used to be a resident of one of those big cities but has found cozy Shady Hollow to be a lot more to her taste.

The Shady Hollow series as a whole, are lovely, charming, and very cozy mysteries – and Evergreen Chase is no exception. At the same time, the use of animals as people gives the author all sorts of opportunities to include comments about human behavior hiding in plain sight – or under the bare covering of a pawkerchief.

Like many of the stories in this series, there’s a mystery, but it’s a gentle one. No one is dead, no one is likely to end up dead, but the town’s collective anguish is still VERY real, as someone has literally stolen one of their beloved traditions right out from under them.

That the town pulls together to celebrate the solstice with or without the tree is all part of the series’ charm. That they have their own solstice miracle just adds to the sweetness of both the story and the holiday season – both theirs and ours.

So this feels like its a short story for the many fans of the series, of which I am mostly definitely one. And it turned out to be the perfect start for my holiday reading. (As much as I enjoyed The Wishing Bridge reading it last week made me want to give myself a ‘ten-yard penalty for rushing the season.’ Reading Evergreen Chase felt like a ‘proper’ start to the season.)

It did also remind me of another lovely holiday story that uses animals to tell an entirely different but equally charming human story. If Shady Hollow sounds charming but you’ve never watched Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, well, let this be the season to get the song, “There Ain’t No Hole in the Washtub” stuck in your head, just like it is in mine this time of year!

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Black Friday is just a weird day. It’s not a holiday, but it still feels like part of a holiday. Unless one works in retail, because it’s most definitely, absolutely not a holiday under those conditions! Also weird, but along the U.S./Canadian border, even though there is no Thanksgiving Thursday in Canada (Canadian Thanksgiving is in mid-October), there is mostly definitely a Black Friday complete with Black Friday sales.

But it’s a day when not many people may be reading blogs – possibly because in the U.S. they are either still in a turkey coma or because they’re off trying to grab the best Black Friday deals. So, for those who are staying home, I have a bit of a giveaway for you.

It’ll just be a little something to put in someone’s holiday stocking, but it’s just a way to say ‘THANKS!’ to all of you who have spent a bit of time with me over the year at chez Reading Reality.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Twilight Falls by Juneau Black

Review: Twilight Falls by Juneau BlackTwilight Falls (Shady Hollow, #4) by Juneau Black
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, cozy mystery
Series: Shady Hollow #4
Pages: 259
Published by Vintage on November 7, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

The fourth book in the Shady Hollow mystery series sees Vera embroiled in a case involving star-crossed lovers whose affair may have turned deadly.
It's spring in Shady Hollow, and romance is in the air. Even reporter Vera Vixen is caught up in the season as her relationship with new police chief Orville Braun blossoms. But true love is not always smooth sailing, as two of the hollow's young residents come to find. Jonah Atwater and Stasia von Beaverpelt find themselves battling their families in order to be together. And when Alan's father, Shelby, goes over the top of Twilight Falls, all signs point to Stasia being the murderer.
The evidence against Stasia appears overwhelming, and Orville arrests her. It looks like the case is closed, but Vera isn't so sure. There are almost too many clues indicating Stasia is the killer, leading her to suspect someone is setting Stasia up. Besides, what about the mysterious ghostly creature skulking around town at night? Maybe he or she was involved? As Vera investigates further, her sleuthing puts her in direct opposition to Orville, and soon she's stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble.

My Review:

Twilight Falls turned out to be a refreshing breath of spring, the perfect antidote to the wintry conditions descending upon us these days.

It was also a delightful twisty little mystery, as the Shady Hollow series oh-so-frequently turns out to be.

Our story begins as a celebration of all things spring. The days are getting longer and warmer, the flowers are poking their heads out of the ground, the cherry blossoms are having their all-too-brief season and the apple trees have put on their glorious display just in time for Shady Hollow’s annual Apple Blossom Walk Festival for the benefit of the local charities. It’s a celebration of everyone’s survival from the winter, while acknowledging that some creatures’ survival cut a little too close to the bone in one way or another. The funds raised at the Festival go to those in need, while everyone has a great time celebrating the season.

It’s just that kind of celebration – albeit a bit more impromptu one – where the crime that ties the whole town in knots occurs. Twilight Falls, so named because the water at its base always seems to be shrouded in the gloam of twilight, is just far enough out in the woods – or in this case up the river – to seem like a great place to get away for a day.

On this particular weekend day, a LOT of the townsfolk have taken the opportunity of the warmer weather to take the ferry up to Twilight Falls for a day of frolicking for the little ones and perhaps a bit of canoodling for the courting couples on the trip.

Those courting couples include investigative reporter Vera Vixen and her beau, Police Chief Orville Braun, along with a picnic basket and a rare opportunity to spend time together without either of their jobs getting in the way.

Unfortunately, one of the other courting couples consists of Stasia von Beaverpelt, spoiled daughter of the town’s biggest employer,  and her considerably less well-to-do boyfriend, working-class otter Jonah Atwater.

Unlike the cross-species relationship between Vera and Orville, both Stasia and Jonah still have parents around to object, most vigorously, about their romance. Jonah’s father has been objecting so strenuously, loudly and publicly that it’s more of a disappointment than a surprise that he tags along on the ferry to interfere yet again.

But it IS very much of a surprise when the senior Atwater is seen to have an altercation at the top of the falls with a mysterious adversary who draws a knife and pitches him over the Falls – presumably to his doom.

Or at least to the doom of Stasia and Jonah’s romance.

Escape Rating A-: Shady Hollow fits right into the cozy fantasy vibe that has become so popular, and it certainly is a comforting addition (or addiction) to the genre.

I was initially, back in the first book, Shady Hollow, expecting the setup to be more than a bit twee. Surprisingly, it’s not. Not even when taking word substitutions like ‘pawkerchief’ for ‘handkerchief’ into account.

The small town of Shady Hollow is every bit as cozy and twee as the setting of any small-town cozy mystery series, but not actually any more than that. Instead, the various creatures’ species turn out to be a way of highlighting character traits that in human-centric cozies has to be just a bit more explicitly revealed.

But the story proceeds the way that small-town cozies do. The police investigate the crime and come to the wrong conclusion. The romance between the police chief and the ace reporter snags on their strong differences of opinion about whodunnit. The red herrings get tastier and tastier as Orville’s investigation and Vera’s go their separate ways.

While both of them get lots of coffee and sympathy at the local coffee shop. That the shop is run by a moose doesn’t change that vibe AT ALL.

The family drama on both sides of the couple at the heart of the mystery, Stasia’s mother’s ambitions for her to marry well and wealthily, contrasted with Jonah’s dad’s stubborn determination that Jonah marry an otter, period, exclamation point, end of discussion, hit familiar beats in spite of the change in species. As do both adult children’s rejoinder that their parents are just being old-fashioned in their objections.

That their arguments seem to have found a violent resolution is just as typical for the cozy mystery genre as the rest of the story. And it’s all just a lovely and comforting read all the way around. Just like all cozy mystery series, if you’ve fallen for the regular ‘gang’ and the place they live – and I have – then it’s always wonderful to come back for a visit. And it certainly was this time around.

That the ending turns out to be even cozier than expected baked a delightful reading cake with just the tastiest icing imaginable.

I enjoyed reading this touch of spring mystery in the midst of a blustery fall, but I’m absolutely looking forward to the more seasonally-appropriate setting of Evergreen Chase, which I’m planning to read a bit later this holiday season.

Review: Phantom Pond by Juneau Black

Review: Phantom Pond by Juneau BlackPhantom Pond: A Shady Hollow Halloween Short Story by Juneau Black
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: ebook
Genres: cozy fantasy, cozy mystery
Series: Shady Hollow #4.5
Pages: 32
Published by Vintage on September 26, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads

In the woodlands around Shady Hollow, there’s a legend about a mysterious creature known as Creeping Juniper. According to local lore, she’s a sort of witch who dwells deep in the woods, casting spells on the shore of Phantom Pond. It’s a harmless old tale, until a prank goes wrong. When a young creature goes missing, all the clues point to Creeping Juniper. But to solve the mystery and rescue an innocent victim, Vera Vixen and her friends need to find a place that doesn’t appear on any maps. Can they discover the location of Phantom Pond before it’s too late?

My Review:

Every society seems to invent a holiday where its denizens can let their hair down, or at least loose the stays on the stricter rules of society, for a day or two – even if they don’t turn those rules completely topsy-turvy.

That’s what Halloween with its trick-or-treating and fake-scary haunted houses – along with the occasional TP’ing of selected houses – has come to be today. However seriously it might have started.

After all, ghost stories are fun as long as no one takes them TOO seriously!

Which leads to Phantom Pond overlooking Shady Hollow, that very cozy little mystery town where all the citizens are anthropomorphized animals. It’s very charming, and so are they. But they are very definitely people, no matter their species, and they are capable of and subject to all the foibles and peccadillos that we are.

Phantom Pond is set on Mischief Night – a VERY accurate re-naming of Halloween – which begins just like one would expect, with decorations and trick-or-treaters and activities for the children as the adults look on indulgently while sipping adult beverages.

Just as our Halloween has its folktales both new and old, and presents a fine opportunity for telling the creepiest stories in the potentially scariest circumstances, Shady Hollow has its own such tales, the most popular and prevalent of which is the story of the witch ‘Creeping Juniper’ who has been stealing adventurous and/or misbehaving children for a century or more.

When one of the little Mischief Night revelers doesn’t turn up the following morning, not at home, not at her best friend’s house, not anywhere – and a vaguely threatening missive from Creeping Juniper is found in her place – everyone fears the worst.

Especially ace reporter Vera Vixen, off on a not so mad quest to comb through ALL the legends of Creeping Juniper to figure out just where the witch’s lair might be hidden.

Only to discover that this year’s Mischief Night has played one last trick on the unsuspecting residents of Shady Hollow.

Escape Rating A-: The premise of the entire Shady Hollow series might seem like a bit of a Mischief Night prank, but it’s honestly adorable, and sits right at the intersection between cozy small town mysteries and cozy fantasies like Legends & Lattes. If Zootopia had taken place in rural Bunnyburrow instead of the metropolis it might look a bit like Shady Hollow.

And if that all sounds like as terrific of a reading time to you as it did to me, start with the first book in the series, Shady Hollow. You won’t be disappointed.

What makes Phantom Pond in particular both so cute, so cozy and such a wonderful Halloween story is the way that it manages to showcase the close-knit coziness of the town and lampshade the creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky and all together ooky vibe of the best scary stories. Once Mischief Night is over, the story shifts seamlessly but oh-so-realistically scarily into a bit of a thriller, as the whole town searches for a missing little girl and it seems like time is running out.

Then it turns the whole scenario on its head, one more time, into the best kind of cathartic happy ending about mysterious misunderstandings until all their, and our, fears are laid peacefully to rest but no character is left under a ‘Rest in Peace’ marker.

If you’re looking for a Halloween story with just the right amount of scares but not too much, Phantom Road is perfect. If you love small town mysteries with just a touch of magic, Shady Hollow might be your jam, and very tasty jam it is indeed.

I’ve visited Shady Hollow every time there’s a new mystery, and I’ve loved the place each and every time. Which means I have plenty of treats in store this holiday season. The next full-length mystery in Shady Hollow is coming early next month at Twilight Falls, and I have a winter solstice story to catch up with this season at Evergreen Chase.

Happy Holidays!

Review: Mirror Lake by Juneau Black

Review: Mirror Lake by Juneau BlackMirror Lake by Juneau Black
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy mystery, mystery
Series: Shady Hollow #3
Pages: 240
Published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard on April 26, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads


The third novel in the Shady Hollow mystery series, in which Vera Vixen takes on her most challenging case yet: solving the murder of a rat who appears to still be alive.

Change is afoot in Shady Hollow, with an unusually tense election shaping up between long-serving Chief of Police Theodore Meade and Vera's beau, Deputy Orville Braun. But the political tension takes a back seat when resident eccentric Dorothy Springfield becomes convinced her beloved husband, Edward, is dead, and that the rat claiming to be him is actually a fraud.
While most of the town dismisses Dorothy's rants as nothing more than a delusion, Vera has her doubts. More than a few things don't add up in the Springfield household, but Vera will have to tread carefully, since, with Orville's attention on the election, she may be more exposed than ever.
A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL.

My Review:

And we’re back in the very cozy, slightly twee village of Shady Hollow for one more bloody (as in there’s actual dripping blood) mystery among this (mostly) charming group of people who just happen to be animals.

Don’t let that bit fool you. All stories are about people – even if they claim they’re not. Because people are all we know how to be – and we’re the ones writing the story.

Adora Springfield is dead – but this isn’t about her. Except when it is. Adora was, all things considered, adored by pretty much everyone in Shady Hollow and the neighboring, even smaller community of Mirror Lake. She lived a long life and contributed a lot to both communities. She’ll be mourned and she’ll be missed. And she left an estate worth killing for, tied up in an estate-planning tangle that is going to require both a lawyer and an investigative journalist to unravel.

Chief of Police Theodore Meade is a deadbeat. Not exactly, as he’s earning a decent salary as the leader of Shady Hollow’s two-bear police department. But he’s not doing the job. At all. Pretty much ever. He’s too “busy” fishing, leaving all the policing in town to his deputy-bear Orville Braun.

And Orville is pretty much sick of doing all the work and not being sure whether or not he’s getting any of the credit.

The case and the campaign both revolve – one clockwise and one anti-clockwise – around the person of investigative reporter and fox-about-town Vera Vixen. As a reporter for the local newspaper, the death of one of the town’s leading lights and the first contested campaign for Police Chief in years are both juicy stories that Vera is itching to dig her way into and write all about.

But Orville and Vera are romantically involved, even as they butt heads over pretty much every case. She can’t cover his campaign – no matter how much her boss wants her to use her “inside track” to get the real scoop. Her boss is GREAT at selling newspapers but LOUSY at journalistic ethics.

It’s Vera’s search for a bit of legal cover to protect her job with that leads her into the Springfield case. A case that Orville – and the rest of the town – refuse to see as a real case at all.

Dorothy Springfield, known to all and sundry as “Dotty” for her occasional flakiness, has returned from tending to her now-late mother-in-law and taking care of the funeral arrangements to cause a very public scene by claiming that her husband is NOT her husband. That her real husband is dead and whoever this rat (literally, the Springfields are the wealthiest rats in town) may look like her beloved Edward but he is absolutely NOT her Edward.

Everyone is certain that Dotty is just being dotty again. Vera has doubts. Initially little ones, as Dotty’s reputation has definitely preceded her – but doubts that are worth digging into because they’ll make an excellent story.

A story that nearly gets Vera killed. Again.

Escape Rating B+: This was not the book I originally planned to finish the week with, but that one (Last Exit) turned out to be a bit more book than I had time to chew at the end of this week. (I’m listening to the audio and it’s good but it’s also longer than I thought. The best laid plans of mice, men and book reviewers and all that.)

So I returned to Shady Hollow for one more lovely if murderous time. And it turned out to be a charming way to finish out the week.

On its surface, Mirror Lake is a typical cozy mystery set in a typical if somewhat twee small town. That all the people are animals adds to its charm for me, but may add to its twee-ness for others. YMMV but I like visiting the place.

The two cases are the bread and butter of this kind of story. A minor conflict between the townsfolk, a case of everyone in town knowing everyone else’s business and maintaining their assumptions about the people they know so well, and a twisty little bit of murder, with an amateur sleuth in the middle of entirely too many things for probability to have any bearing whatsoever.

(I always think that Cabot Cove and Midsummer County must have such a ridiculously high homicide rate that newcomers would stay far, far, away – but they never do.)

Series like Shady Hollow, whether featuring humans or animals-as-humans, are more about the town and its inhabitants than it is about the murders that take place. Which is a good thing in Mirror Lake as I figured out whodunnit long before the big reveal at the end.

The fun in the story is watching it all work itself out. Vera is both determined and dogged (whatever her species might be), but she’s also compassionate and caring and has invested herself thoroughly in her new home of Shady Hollow. As an amateur investigator, operating mostly on her own, she’s also very much a “fools rush in” type, putting herself in extreme danger in every book because she tends to figure out whodunnit by poking her nose into the killer’s business without being aware that she’s THAT close to the solution.

Which makes following Vera a lot of fun as she drops into Joe’s Mug for life-giving coffee, consults her best friend, bookstore owner Lenore for advice and crime-solving hints, and flirts and fights with her bearish beau whenever they both have a break between cases.

Unfortunately, this is the last – so far, at least – full length novel in the Shady Hollow series. There’s one very short novella, Evergreen Chase, left to go. It’s a holiday story, so I think I’ll save it for when fall starts to nip the air. Or whenever I need a bit of Vera’s animal magnetism.

Review: Cold Clay by Juneau Black

Review: Cold Clay by Juneau BlackCold Clay by Juneau Black
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy mystery, mystery
Series: Shady Hollow #2
Pages: 240
Published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard on March 1, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads


The second book in the Shady Hollow series, in which some long-buried secrets come to light, throwing suspicion on a beloved local denizen.

It's autumn in Shady Hollow, and residents are looking forward to harvest feasts. But then a rabbit discovers a grisly crop: the bones of a moose.
Soon, the owner of Joe's Mug is dragged out of the coffeeshop and questioned by the police about the night his wife walked out of his life--and Shady Hollow--forever. It seems like an open-and-shut case, but dogged reporter Vera Vixen doesn't believe gentle Joe is a killer. She'll do anything to prove his innocence. . .even if it means digging into secrets her neighbors would rather leave buried.
A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL.

My Review:

OK, so the Shady Hollow series is ostensibly a story about extremely anthropomorphized animals acting like the standard characters in a small town cozy mystery. In this particular case, the small town is Shady Hollow and the coziness includes more than a bit of fur.

But also more than a bit of quite literal teeth and claws. Even when the victim and/or the perpetrator are not actually equipped with any or all of those accouterments. As it proved in the first book in this series, named for the town where the mystery takes place, Shady Hollow.

In the first story, two of the village’s less popular residents became what everyone believed were the town’s first murder victims in seemingly ever. The case was all about whittling down the list of who might have done it because motives, at least on the surface, were all too easy to imagine.

This time around, it’s more of a case of intrepid investigative reporter Vera Vixen doing her level best to prove that the obvious suspect isn’t the actual guilty party. Because everybody in town loves Joe Elkins and his coffee shop. Not just because he keeps everyone fed and caffeinated, but because he’s just such a nice person and a pillar of the community in more ways than one.

But Joe has ALL the motives for the murder of his long-missing wife. Everyone thought she left town years ago, unable or unwilling to settle down to small town life running the coffee shop with her spouse and raising their son, Joe, Jr.

The discovery of Julia Elkins skeletal remains in the roots of a fruit tree that wasn’t doing all that well puts Joe in the crosshairs of the police investigation into yet another murder. Joe IS the obvious suspect – not just because it’s ALWAYS the husband (except when it isn’t) – but because Julia was so obviously unhappy, she and Joe were constantly arguing, and someone robbed the coffeeshop just before she disappeared. That’s a LOT of motives.

It doesn’t help Joe’s case that relatively few of Shady Hollow’s residents would even be capable of taking down a full-grown moose!

Vera is certain that the police, in the persons of perpetually fishing Chief Theodore Meade and Vera’s possible beau, Deputy Orville Braun have the wrong person in their sights. And she has every intention of proving that her friend Joe is innocent.

But her boss, the owner of the Shady Hollow Herald, orders Vera to drop her murder investigation in favor of writing fluff pieces about a new business in Shady Hollow that has tempted the veteran newspaper owner with dreams of full-page ad revenues.

New mink-about-town Octavia Grey, with her striking silver coat and her hoity-toity new “School of Etiquette” has all the local gossips twittering. The newspaper wants a piece of that pie, but Vera is sure that there’s something not quite on the up-and-up about the so-called school and its mesmerizing owner. She thinks taking etiquette classes is a waste of time when she should be looking into the latest murder.

It’s only when she digs a bit deeper into both cases that she begins to suspect the two cases might be one and the same!

Escape Rating B: My reading of Cold Clay was a case of how I felt about the book being influenced by my circumstances as I was reading the book. I was stuck in a small airport for 12 hours and I was looking for stories that would take me away – hopefully far away – from where I was sitting at the time. Having read and enjoyed the first book in this series, Shady Hollow, I knew this was a world that I could step into for a couple of hours and just be gone for a bit. (I read a LOT of books that day!)

The world of Shady Hollow reminds me of the movie Zootopia. The characters are basically humans in fur-suits who populate this small town and this cozy mystery with the stock characters we expect in a cozy – just with a little bit extra.

It’s not nearly as twee as you might think it will be – or at least not any more twee than the usual small town with a much higher homicide rate than anyone would think a town that size would be able to support.

Like in many such mysteries, the reader is aware that the long arm of coincidence just isn’t that long. If a new person arrives in town, and an old crime is uncovered, the odds are that the two are somehow connected. And so it proves in Cold Clay.

In other words, I figured out that Octavia Grey had something to do with Julia Elkins’ long-ago murder long before Vera did – even if I didn’t yet have a clue as to how she done it. THAT she done it was pretty obvious.

And it didn’t matter. What makes this series so charming are its people, as is true of most small town cozies. I liked visiting Shady Hollow, and I like the people who live there, fur-suits and all. I went into this story expecting to be charmed and entertained and I was not disappointed in either of those respects. The story did exactly what I wanted it to do – it whisked me away for a couple of hours and that was just fine.

But speaking of expectations, one of the other frequent expectations of cozies is that the investigators, whether professional or amateur, will find some kind of romance along the way, even if that romance is of the on-again, off-again variety. Vera’s relationship with Deputy Orville Braun has been edging in that direction since the first book, to the amusement of MANY of Shady Hollow’s residents.

As difficult a time as I’m having trying NOT to imagine how that could possibly work in the physical aspects, the push-pull dance of wanting to protect vs. needing to prove oneself an equal has more heart than I expected.

I hope they figure it out. It’s one of the things I’ll be looking for in what seems to be the final book in the series, Mirror Lake, next month when it comes out.

Review: Shady Hollow by Juneau Black

Review: Shady Hollow by Juneau BlackShady Hollow (Shady Hollow #1) by Juneau Black
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy mystery, mystery
Series: Shady Hollow #1
Pages: 240
Published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard on January 25, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads


The first book in the Shady Hollow series, in which we are introduced to the village of Shady Hollow, a place where woodland creatures live together in harmony--until a curmudgeonly toad turns up dead and the local reporter has to solve the case.

Reporter Vera Vixen is a relative newcomer to Shady Hollow. The fox has a nose for news, so when she catches wind that the death might be a murder, she resolves to get to the bottom of the case, no matter where it leads. As she stirs up still waters, the fox exposes more than one mystery, and discovers that additional lives are in jeopardy.
Vera finds more to this town than she ever suspected. It seems someone in the Hollow will do anything to keep her from solving the murder, and soon it will take all of Vera's cunning and quickness to crack the case.
A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL.

My Review:

Shady Hollow (the book as opposed to the town IN the book) is the kind of story that doesn’t lend itself to the easy description and characterization you think it will.

The U.S. cover makes it look like this is going to be a somewhat twee story about animals acting like humans. And it IS a story about animals acting like humans, but it’s not nearly so twee as you think it will be.

The original U.K. cover (at left) does a bit better job of conveying the darkness that is lurking inside the sleepy little town of Shady Hollow. Because this is the opening book in a series of murder mysteries – admittedly pretty cozy murder mysteries – where all of the characters are VERY anthropomorphized animals.

On her way to work one morning, Vera Vixen, new fox in town, discovers the dead body of Shady Hollow’s least popular resident, the cantankerous toad Otto Sumpf. With a knife in his back.

The toad was such an argumentative old curmudgeon that it’s not all that big a surprise that someone finally got angry enough to kill him.

But there has never been a murder in Shady Hollow that anyone can remember. The police – both bears – aren’t so much stumped as completely out of their depth. Which is where Vera comes in.

Vera’s not just a fox – although it turns out that the deputy police bear certainly thinks she is. Vera is an investigative reporter for the local newspaper, the Shady Hollow Herald. Before she came to sleepy Shady Hollow, she was an investigative reporter for a newspaper in a much larger town – where there was, both naturally and unfortunately at the same time – much more crime than Shady Hollow.

So Vera knows how an investigation is supposed to go – even if Deputy Orville Braun is still reading the manual while his boss is off fishing. Again. Perpetually.

When the most prominent citizen in town joins the toad in the town’s temporary morgue – a vacant jail cell, Vera and Orville join forces to find and catch the killer before the creature catches one of them – and adds their body to the pile.

Escape Rating B: I’ve been trying to think of what this book reminds me of, and the closest I initially managed to come was The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde, crossed with an adult version of the Beatrix Potter stories.

At its heart this is still a murder mystery, using those animals-as-people to tell a story that is really about people. Because that’s the perspective all writers have no matter what their characters claim to be.

So, like the Beatrix Potter stories, the author is using animals dressed as humans, doing human things, acting mostly like humans, to talk about what humans do while placing the story at one remove by making all the characters ostensibly animals.

The Constant Rabbit is both closer and further from the mark, as in that story the presence of the anthropomorphized rabbits alongside humans was used as a direct way of talking about shitty human behavior.

It’s possible the closest analogy to Shady Hollow is the movie Zootopia, and I’m a bit embarrassed about how long it took me to get there. And now that I come to think about it, the ending of Zootopia is even a bit of a spoiler for Shady Hollow.

So, we have the animal-citizens of Shady Hollow as the otherwise typical citizens of this cute, cozy and slightly quaint little town. And we have dead bodies piling up, a police chief who is always absent and everyone knows it, an ambitious deputy with no training, a nosy investigative reporter, etc., etc., etc. All fairly standard characters for a cozy mystery.

Viewed as creatures, they are adorable and the little touches that remind the reader these are animals draws the reader into the shtick with a smile. But the way the town thinks about itself, the motives for the crime spree, the investigation and most definitely the way that the nosy reporter nearly becomes part of the spree make this a fun, if slightly furry, cozy with just a bit of a twist.

So come for the animals – stay for the mystery. Or the other way around. It’s light, frothy and certainly fluffy either way. I’ll be back to visit Shady Hollow again in the next book in the series, Cold Clay. The amiable local coffee shop owner is about to be caught up in a hotter brew than anything he ever planned to serve.