When exotic pet-sitter Belinda Blake moves into a carriage house in tony Greenwich, Connecticut, she’s hoping to find some new clients. Instead she discovers a corpse in the garden—and a knack for solving murders . . . Pet-sitter Belinda Blake doesn’t rattle easily, but move-in day has been eventful, to say the least. The python in her care tried to slither to freedom—just as she met Stone … freedom—just as she met Stone Carrington V, her landlords’ disarmingly handsome son. With the constrictor back in its cage, she heads out to the garden, only to discover a designer shoe poking out of the boxwood hedge—attached to a woman’s dead body.
The victim, Margo Fenton, was a Carrington family friend, and no one in their circle seems above suspicion. Between client trips to Manhattan and visits to her family in upstate New York, Belinda begins to put the pieces together. But though she’s falling for Stone’s numerous charms, Belinda wonders if she’s cozying up to a killer. And soon, daily contact with a deadly reptile might be the least dangerous part of her life . . .
“A humorous series debut with exotic pets and a zany cast of characters. Gilbert’s cozy will make you smile.”
—Amanda Flower, USA Today bestselling author of Premeditated Peppermint
“Cozy fans will root for pet-sitter Belinda Blake as she unravels this cleverly-crafted mystery in a delightfully-deadly new series by Heather Day Gilbert.”
—Elizabeth Spann Craig, author of the bestselling Myrtle Clover Mysteries
“Smart and fresh, with a compelling mystery at its heart, Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass is an enchanting cozy that will hook you from page one. As will amateur sleuth Belinda Blake, a delightfully original heroine you’ll want to meet again and again.”
—Karin Kaufman, author of the bestselling Juniper Grove Cozy Mystery Series
“Snakes rank only slightly more favorably with me than spiders, leeches, and ticks. So you can imagine my surprise when, by the end of this book, the snake was my second favorite character after Belinda herself. On top of being a great book for animal-lovers (trust me, you’ll love even the snake), this was a fun read with a smart sleuth. I can’t wait to see what Belinda does next, where both pets and perps are concerned.”
—Emily James, award-winning and bestselling cozy mystery author
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The description of this story drew me right in—a young lady who pet-sits exotic pets! This occupation actually seems to fit Belinda Blake perfectly as she pretty much takes life in stride. Heather Day Gilbert lets her whimsical side show in this cozy mystery. The characters are colorful and quirky, and the plot moves along well throughout the story. Well-written and well-edited, this tale kept me guessing to the end. What a great start to a new series!
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Such a fun, unpredictable mystery novel! I really enjoyed reading this novel, yet had no idea who did it! I was surprised and shocked! Definitely can not wait to read more in this series! Belinda Blake is a new character I want to read every book written about her! I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. All views stated here are my own.
Such a fun cozy mystery. I enjoyed reading about Belinda as she tries to unravel the murder mystery. Lots of red herrings, a cool snake, and Belinda herself makes this book with the read
I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Lyrical Press, via NetGalley. My thoughts and opinions are my own and without bias or remuneration.
I love cozies. Cozies that meet the original definition as near as I can tell can be hard to come by, but Heather Gilbert’s newest had me smiling. Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass by Gilbert is a new favorite in this category. I don’t know that Greenwich is considered a “small town,” but the setting of a carriage house on the grounds of a mansion worked. The main character is an exotic pet-sitter. So no kittens or dogs. In this case, the snake Belinda is caring for plays an important role. Quirky characters? At least one, and Belinda is a little out-of-the-ordinary herself. Her other job is to review video games. How can she then hold Stone accountable for having a real job?
But what I especially liked was the fact there was no bad language nor scenes I was ashamed to read. Sure, there is hanky-panky somewhere behind the scenes. But if there were not, would there be any enemies or deaths?
This was just a fun(when not scary) cozy. The action really started to snowball faster than I had expected, and a great tension ensues as Belinda searches for the killer before the killer finds her. I was surprised at the outcome. Also, forbidden romances add romantic tension and puzzle to the novel as well. I truly enjoyed this offering and I can’t wait to see what Belinda is up to in the next book, A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.
Fave quotes:
“My mom would tell me to embrace myself and stop trying to be someone I’m not… ‘Why fit in when you can stand out?’ she’d say.”
“I extended my foot and gave his leg a little nudge with the toe of my Doc Martins, a reminder that we’d come for more than just drinks and lies.”
“When money’s your god, everything else is a poor substitute.”
“…there were so many mixed signals coming from Stone, he could be a drunk referee.”
“Sometimes one forgot things when one was flying by the seat of one’s pants.”
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author and NetGalley. This in no way affects my opinions for which I am solely responsible.
As a fan of the author’s mysteries, I couldn’t miss her first cozy. It is even better than I anticipated! Heather Day Gilbert begins with a young woman who many readers can identify with and moves her to Greenwich, CT, where she rents a carriage house. Include the mixed blessing of petsitting a ball python and a murder just outside the carriage house, and the elements are in line for a perfect read.
Belinda has taken her time finding what she enjoys doing for a living. After being in remote, interesting locations with the Peace Corp, she is growing her exotic pet-sitting business that began in Manhattan. She is a video gamer who works as a reviewer. A self-accepted introvert, she appreciates time alone and reading mysteries. She is sitting a ball python between the owner’s Manhattan home and her carriage house. I’d enjoy being a pet-sitter – but not to reptiles!
When arriving at the carriage house with Rasputin, she took him out for a “walk”. She met Stone Carrington V, son of the homeowners, for the first time. As they talked, the python slithered into her clothing and started wrapping himself a little too closely around her for comfort. She was rescued by Jacques, the gardener, who snuck up on the snake and loosened its grip on her.
Belinda likes working in gardens. She doesn’t have to do anything in the Carrington’s gardens, but she decided to pull a few weeds. She found more than weeds outside the carriage house, however; first she saw the designer shoe…then the body of the young woman still wearing it.
The young woman was Margo Fenton, a friend of Stone V and his friends. Margo had been at the estate the night before for a Monday night billiards game. Stone V invited Belinda to dinner and to go with him to meet one of the Monday night guys that Margo had once seriously dated. He wanted to know if Dietrich, an artist, remembered Margo having any plans after the game that night but he shared nothing helpful. Stone and Belinda talked with other friends of Margo. Belinda learned things about Stone V that he neglected to tell her, such as he had dated Margo briefly after she broke up with Dietrich. Margo’s best friend, Frannie, knew Margo was seeing someone but she wouldn’t share who, even with Frannie. The police focus on Stone V, but there are at least a couple other potentials. Belinda receives an anonymous threat, and another young woman is murdered.
I am impressed at the author’s use of characters her father created when she was a child. He made up stories about Belinda and her sister Katrina for long car trips. What a delightfully creative mind both Heather Day Gilbert and her father have! This is very well written, and the characters defined so well I felt a kinship with Belinda by the end of the novel. I even have reasons to kind of like Rasputin! The mystery is unique, and a challenge to solve. I chased a couple red herrings, then was completely stumped. I considered the real whodunit, but simply wasn’t sure…so I had surprises at the end. The setting of Thanksgiving and Christmas are appealing, especially during this desert summer! Overall, I very much enjoyed this novel and highly recommend it to those who appreciate well-written cozies, unusual pets, and a protagonist who is an introvert. It is a great start to this new series.
From a thankful heart: I received a copy of this from the publisher and NetGalley, and this is my honest review.
Series: An Exotic Pet-Sitter Mystery – Book 1
Author: Heather Day Gilbert
Genre: Cozy Mystery/ Pet
Publisher: Kensington
Page Count:192
Publishing Date: June 25, 2019
From Kensington Books, comes book one, Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass in a new series from award-winning author, Heather Day Gilbert. The “An Exotic Pet Sitter Mystery” will be a delightful, fun cozy series with interesting characters and unusual plots.
The main character, Belinda Blake is young, hip and full of brilliant ideas to build her pet sitting business as well as her game review business. She is quirky and lovable with a hint of sass, and naiveté. As with all new series, there will be changes and revelations to come for characters
and plots. Other characters are just as unique as Belinda, some more than others. They will become an asset to future stories and will entertain readers with their unusual characteristics, faults and all.
The first adventure in this series is a bit unorthodox, a character who is an exotic pet sitter but who seems to be timid with a snake. When Belinda finds a body buried in her back porch garden, she feels that it is imperative to find the killer, after the second body she becomes even more determined to catch the killer. Readers see her evolve and begin to like the snake as the
story progresses, build new friendships and maybe learn a life lesson or two along the way. Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass has moments of delight and an equal amount of head-scratching confusion.
The chief victim is never known while alive, but readers will get a good sense of who she was, and even why someone would want her dead. There are quite a few twists and turns in this book, enough to keep readers guessing who the killer is until the end. The unveiling is action packed and the killer’s identity unexpected.
Overall, I found Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass to be entertaining with room for growth of the characters in future additions to the series. There are some slow parts and missing background information that should be filled out in book two. More interaction between Belinda’s family as well as her hometown and her past would be beneficial in future books. In general, this was a quick, fun read and I recommend it to readers of all cozy genres.
Wow! Finding a body in your flower bed! This ladies troubles are just beginning as she tries to figure out who would have done it. The killer was a real surprise! I was gifted a copy, my review is voluntary.
Once again Heather Gilbert shows her readers that she is a dab hand at cozy mysteries. A pet sitter babysitting a huge snake doesn’t deter Belinda Blake one bit. She is living in a small apartment on the estate of a super rich family when she finds a dead body in her yard. From then on, Belinda is in a mission to discover the killer. Readers are as well and Gilbert leads us on a merry chase, for I was completely surprised at the identity of the culprit.
* My thanks to the publisher and author for a copy of this book via Net Galley. The opinions stated here are entirely my own.
Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass ( Exotic Pet-Sitter #1 )
By: Heather Day Gilbert
Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass is the first book in a new series Exotic Pet-Sitter . Wow, a snake. I stopped reading a few times , because I do not like snakes. Belinda is an Exotic Pet-sitter and is sitting a Ball Python snake. There is murder, mystery, suspense, and romance in this cozy mystery. The story and the characters both are a little quirky. There are twist and turns by the author that will keep you turning the pages and guessing till the end.
I was given a complimentary copy of this book by NetGalley , publisher, and author, but was not told that I had to give a positive review. All opinions are my own.
I was sold on the premise of this one. A cozy mystery with an exotic pet sitter as main character. I hit request almost immediately after I read the blurb on Netgalley. Sadly this is one of those books that didn’t quite hit the mark for me. It had a lot of potential and parts I did like, but the story as a whole failed to fully grab my attention and keep it. In the end I was curious who had done it, so I continued onward even tough after the first chapter I knew this wasn’t going to be a book I would fully enjoy.
Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass follows the story of exotic pet sitter and video game reviewer/ article writer Belinda Blake. Belinda just moved to Greenwich to a carriage house. At the end of the book I still have no clue why she insisted on only wanting a carriage house as her house, but this was important to her for some reason. She meets the son of her landlord Stone the fifth when she’s out walking Rasputin the snake. Then later that day she stumbles upon a dead body and Stone the fifth ask for her help to figure out who murdered her.
From the first page there was just something that wasn’t quite working for me and I am still not quite sure what. Something about the way it was written and the pace and the way the plot continued. It felt almost rushed, but not quite, but things did progress quite quickly and not always in a way that made sense to me.
And all these little things that just didn’t work for me and each thing is small in and of itself, but it adds up over the course of the book. Like how she was an exotic pet sitter without much knowledge in said area so far, she seemed afraid and hesitant about the snake at first. I didn’t feel her passion or drive for anything and I had a hard time understanding her actions. Then there’s the way she gets involved in this mystery that involves people she hardly knows. And then there are things like Stone the fifth and Stone the fourth, somehow it just got on my nerves to have that number behind their names all the time.
There is a bit of potential romance that developed quite quickly, but then she does get annoyed when he didn’t tell her something, while one date and one visit to a friend was hardly enough time to get to know someone enough to divulge the kind of information she wanted. She’s a game reviewer, but some of the terminology struck me as odd. Maybe it’s an attempt to not date the book, but it just made it sound odd and like the author or character didn’t know enough about gaming.
I wanted more about her gaming, her exotic pet business and who she was a character. Only later in the book we get a bit of a feel for what she has done in the past, but I just had a hard time getting a good feel for her character and it made it hard to get invested in the story. I also was a bit surprised how Belinda could make enough money while she hardly worked and rarely spend time building her business or anything. She did take care of the snake and gamed a bit, but she mad more than enough time to focus on other things too. I guess I would’ve liked a bit more focus on her business as a pet sitter and game reviewer as those were parts I was interested in.
The mystery was actually what kept me reading as I was curious to know who was the murderer. I think this is the reason why I haven’t DNF’d a cozie yet as there is still a part of me that wants to know the answer. I thought the way Belinda got involved in the mystery felt a bit off, she doesn’t know anyone yet in her new town except maybe Stone the fifth who she just met. Then someone gets murdered next to her house and there is not even talk of the police at first, but Stone the fifth goes off talking to everyone and see what they knew. I am not even sure why he got so involved instead of leaving it to the police. As the police actually did seem mostly capable in this book. Anyway so we have Stone the fifth who wants to figure out who is the murderer and Belinda who sort of goes along with him and finds him charming. It just felt off and I didn’t really feel that she cared as much about solving this murderer, until later in the book. She gets more involved with the characters involved in the case and by the end it did feel more clear why she was involved.
Then there is the mystery itself, which was pretty decent. There was a big clue very early on in the book that no character seemed to catch and which ruled out a bunch of people for me. And later on another big hint that Belinda missed which solidified my guesses. But besides that there was some solid progression and they did do some smart things. One of my two guesses turned out to be the murderer. There was a great twist when the murderer gets revealed and when the whole truth comes to light. I also liked that there were some moments when you start doubting everyone, but I think that also was easy to do as I didn’t really care for many of the characters.
I liked how some of the characters and relationships developed over the course of the book. It was fun to see Belinda visit her parents and her home town as well, although I think a bit more build-up and depth could’ve been there. I also liked how Belinda grew to like the snake more throughout the book, although she still didn’t really strike me as an animal person somehow. I also though there was an interesting development with some of the characters she met during the murder investigation and some of the characters really surprised me with the characters.
To summarize: Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass didn’t fully work for me, but I there were also parts I did enjoy. The set-up was a fun one and I liked the idea of an exotic pet sitter. I had a multitude of small things that didn’t work for me as well as the pacing and story progression being a bit off at times. It felt a bit off how Belinda got involved in the murder investigation as she hardly knew anyone in town yet. And she goes to help as someone she hardly knew was investigating the murder and asked for her help. And I am still not clear why he didn’t leave things up for the police. The mystery itself was quite well done. By the end I had two suspects and one of those was indeed the murderer, but there was an interesting twists that I hadn’t anticipated, that did make sense. There also was a point where I could suspect almost everyone, which was interesting, but partly because I didn’t really care about anyone. I liked how some of the characters developed and seeing how Belinda interacted with them. And there were characters who ended up going in a different direction than I had anticipated, which was interesting. I just had trouble getting a good feel for Belinda and caring about any of the characters. The house, her business and the town also didn’t fully come to live for me. All in all this was a decent start to this series, but it wasn’t quite the book for me, even tough I did enjoy parts of it.
I won this kindle e-book version in a Goodreads Giveaway. It is the first in a series by Heather Day Gilbert. Belinda Blake has two jobs. She is an exotic pet-sitter and a video game reviewer and has just arrived at her new rental; a carriage house on an estate in Connecticut. Before she is finished unpacking, she finds a dead body in a flowerbed at the back of her house. With this start, we are off and running.
The cozy mystery has quirky characters, humor, a ball python, murder, a little romance, attempted murder and lots of red herrings. Belinda plays amateur sleuth and encounters several interesting situations. Who should she trust? The story was well-written and captivating. The plot was engrossing and entertaining. There were some twists and turns and unique situations. Her interactions with the ball python, Rasputin, are definitely entertaining.
I recommend this one to anyone that loves cozy mysteries. I am looking forward to reading the next one in the series.