“You’ll fall in love with this delightful debut mystery.” —Victoria Thompson, bestselling author of Murder in Morningside HeightsThe Silver Bear Shop and Factory might be the cutest place around, but there’s nothing warm and fuzzy about murder . . .As manager of the family teddy bear shop and factory, thirty-one-year-old Sasha Silverman leads a charmed life. Well, except for the part about … life. Well, except for the part about being a single divorcée with a ticking biological clock in small-town Silver Hollow. And that’s just kid’s stuff compared to Will Taylor, the sales rep who’s set on making drastic changes to the business her parents built from scratch—with or without Sasha’s approval . . .
But before Will digs his claws in, someone pulls the stuffing out of his plan . . . and leaves his dead body inside the factory. Reeling from shock, Sasha’s hit with more bad news—police suspect her hot-tempered Uncle Ross may have murdered him. Sasha knows her uncle would never do such a thing, and she’s launching her own little investigation to expose the truth. As she tracks Will’s biggest rivals and enemies for clues, Sasha can’t get too comfy—or she’ll become the next plaything for a killer . . .
“A twisty mystery tale with a likable protagonist and a colorful supporting cast. Sure to be a very enjoyable series!”—Livia J. Washburn, bestselling author of Black and Blueberry Die
“Cute and cuddly on the outside, murder and mayhem on the inside—I love this book!!! Totally adorable.”—Duffy Brown, bestselling author of Braking for Bodies
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Bearly Departed is a cute new cozy mystery set in a small town just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The setting is a teddy bear manufacturing facility and storefront The Silver Bear Shop and Factory. The main character, Alexandra “Sasha” Silverman manages the shop and her sister, Madeline “Maddie” Silverman does the bookkeeping and marketing. The factory is supervised by their uncle Ross. When salesman Will Taylor makes a surprise visit and proclaims that sales are down, layoffs are imminent, and that Sasha and Maddie’s dad approved to move some of the production offshore. Tempers flare and words are spoken that come back and bite the speakers after Will is found dead in the factory. In an effort to clear the names of those suspected in Will’s murder, Sasha starts sleuthing on her own, much to the chagrin of Detective Mason.
A clever who-done-it, Bearly Departed kept me entertained and engaged in the story. Meg Macy delivered a well-written story with a unique setting in a fictional small town in southeast Michigan. As a lifelong Michigander I enjoy a good story, in any genre, that is based in my state. I enjoyed the personalities of each character introduced to us in the book. The book was descriptive well developed, allowing me to visualize the elements of the story, characters, and locations. The characters and situations were believable and the pacing of the story was steady.
I enjoyed Bearly Departed, found the mystery interesting, the characters likable, and the story’s pacing to be on target. There were some family dynamics that were introduced in book 1 and I’d love to see the author explore them more in future installments. I look forward to book 2 in the Teddy Bear Mystery series
This is the first book in the series, and I’m looking forward to many others. The story flowed nicely. The author doesn’t give away the culprit until the very end. It’s a little slow in the beginning, but hang in because it turns out to be a page turner once it gets started. The setting has a very cozy community feeling. I’m looking forward to reading the next book.
An interesting first book in a new cozy mystery. I liked Sasha, her sister Maddie, and the other characters (although her mom made me wanna wack her upside the head). And the murder was wrapped up in a satisfying manner. I’m already checking out book 2.
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This is a must-read for teddy bear fans. And one of the sweeter cozy mystery series out there.
This is the first book of a new series. How fun that it takes place in a Teddy Bear store! It’s all about the family that runs it. They even make the bears in their own factory. The mystery was enough to keep me guessing. It was clean and nothing graphic.
**Copy provided to Bayou Book Junkie for my reading pleasure in hopes of an unbiased opinion, a review was not a requirement.**
Bearly Departed is the first book in the Shamelessly Adorable Teddy Bear Mystery series by Meg Macy. I had never heard of this author or series, but as a fan of mysteries, I was interested in reading it, especially once I saw the cover of this first book. I did expect a cozy mystery but it’s actually a novel-length mystery. If you’ve ever read my reviews before, you’ve heard me say that the first books in series can be difficult for me. I found it especially true in this one, and it really is my issue. When setting up a new series, there can just be so much information overload. The author provides a lot of details in the town she’s built, the businesses, the characters, their histories and interactions. It was just a lot all at once and really just overwhelmed the murder mystery.
For the most part, I liked the main character Sasha. What I didn’t like was the claiming to be over her ex-husband while continuing to think and talk about him. I just wanted to tell her to move on already. The storyline with Sasha’s parents was the strangest thing and made no sense to me, at all. It didn’t add to the story and pulled my focus away from the mystery because I was wondering about these characters.
In my opinion, the murder really wasn’t the focus of this book and that was disappointing. And, I knew who the murder victim would be within minutes of his introduction and who the killer would be. It was very straightforward, without twists and turns. I kept thinking that no way would I be right about that, but I was. Maybe the purpose of all the other storylines and information was to create the mystery around the killer.
This was a good start to a new series, but instead of having an info dump in the first book, it would have been more enjoyable to just learn about all these characters, businesses and histories organically as the series develops. There were many things I did not need to know in this book, which just overwhelmed the murder mystery. And in a murder mystery series, the murder should really be the focus.
If you like murder mysteries, you should give this book a chance! I think this series has the potential to be really enjoyable once you make it through the first book. Actually, since I’ve already read the second book (read on for that review), I know it gets better!
Rating: 3.5 stars
I liked Bearly Departed. I found the mystery interesting and that the story line took me to some unexpected places. I will admit that the author does spend A LOT of page space on developing the background. You will probably learn more than you wanted about the stuffed animal business and how they are made. From a business point, it made sense and seemed accurate.
What didn’t ring true was how the character of Will was handled. Sasha and her sister are the children of the owner and are the onsite management staff. The sister handles the books and never tells Sasha how much Will is being paid? There are major issues with Will and they can’t seem to address the problem with their father (prior to the issues preventing communication that come up in this book)? There’s so much realistic business detail that this weirdness really stood out.
I can see the business detail turning me off as a reader and giving a lower review, but it worked for me in this case. Despite my issues with how the family dealt with Will, I did like Bearly Departed.
I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
Sasha Silverman runs her family’s teddy bear factory in Michigan, a job she mostly enjoys. The one problem is Will Taylor, the company’s sales rep. He returns from a sales conference early to announce that he’s met with Sasha’s semi-retired father, and he has agreed to ship production of the bears overseas. Naturally, all the employees are upset about losing their jobs. Sasha does her best to calm them down until she can reach her father to find out what is really going on, but that night she finds Will dead on the factory floor. Who killed him? The book started a little slowly as we were introduced to Sasha, her employees, and her community. But once we meet Will, things were off and running. As Sasha investigates, she learns things about people she thought she knew well, including her own family. The dynamics there are interesting, and I look forward to seeing them explored in future books. Of course, this mystery comes together for a logical climax.