“Smart, entertaining, and laugh-out-loud funny!” —Liliana Hart, New York Times Bestselling AuthorShe’s a beautician with a plummeting reputation. Can she catch a strangler before her salon is financially frizzed out?Valentine Beaumont is desperate to revive her dying business. Trying to recover from an infamous incident where she defended herself with a perm rod to her attacker’s privates, the … to her attacker’s privates, the last thing she needs is another scandal. So when a wealthy socialite is strangled with a steamer cord while awaiting her facial, Valentine has no choice but to start combing through clues.
Battling a sexy, hard-headed detective who can’t tell pigtails from a pompadour, Valentine is convinced he’s pursuing the wrong suspect. And despite his warning not to meddle, the gutsy stylist vows to clear her name before the killer claims another client.
Can Valentine tie up the culprit before more lives are cut short?
Murder, Curlers & Cream is the first book in the hilarious Valentine Beaumont Mystery series. If you like ambitious heroines, laugh-out-loud dialogue, and unlikely romances, you’ll love Arlene McFarlane’s clever tale!
Buy Murder, Curlers & Cream to detangle a deadly case today!
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From the book’s opening sentence (“You wound a perm rod around a man’s what?”), two things became clear: 1) Valentine is a different kind of sleuth and 2) this would be an entertaining read. And it was. I laughed a lot. Valentine has a knack for improvising when she’s in a predicament. Even though she is quite ditsy and does some stupid things, she is likeable. She is a good person. Even Detective Romero, the enigmatic hot detective, likes her – lending an element of romantic suspense to the story. The murder mystery was laid out nicely, developing at a good pace, and the identity of the culprit was divulged only as the story neared its end.
If you’re looking for a serious literary read, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for an entertaining escape – this book is for you.
Just a fun romp in the genre of cozy mysteries. Well written and light hearted, but with enough meat to keep you reading and enjoying.
Delightful characters and easy to read. You still have to try and figure out ‘who doe it’, but you’ll love the characters along the way.
I loved this book! The main character is sassy, yet witty. She has a comeback for everything. She is a hairdresser with a loyal staff, albeit unpredictable. It’s true Chic Lit, a mystery, and even has a little romance. It will keep you guessing to the very end.
It took a few pages for me to get into this book but, it was worth it. The people were a wide variety of characters and some very unpredictable. This book made you feel like you were invested in her life, her salon, and her friends. Murder with suspects everywhere. In the book, she’s trying to find a killer who murders someone a lot of people hate. She’s hellbent on helping find this person’s killer and gets into some dangerous situations. Some of the characters have a love-hate relationship that is funny to read. If you like a murder/mystery, with some crazy characters, you will enjoy this book.
fun, light, witty mystery with quirky characters that you enjoy getting to know. mystery was just enough to keep you guessing.
This was an interesting” cozy” mystery with different but (mostly) likeable characters. An interesting twist for a “who dun it”. Fun and easy read.
Romeo a well built good looking police detective meets a wacky beautician trying to save her business from bankruptcy. The corpse in the facial message room doesn’t help and neither does a family promise to hire an inept beautician.
I really liked this author’s writing style as it was an easy read and it brought out laugh-out-loud situations. All of the characters came to life and made me a fan right away.
You have two sisters, each born on a special day. Holly who was born on Christmas day and Valentine, can you guess, born on Valentine’s day. Valentine is the main character and the amateur sleuth. She’s an interesting person aside from the fact that like almost every other young female amateur sleuth she’s been hurt, heartbroken, cheated on and oh so very not interested in getting involved with another man EVER. Of course we have the obligatory flirty heart stoppingly gorgeous detective who at first is somewhat offputting but gets under the skin of the ” I will never in a million years give him the time of day” heroine of our story.
The story manages to be unique anyway. It’s humorous and definitely not predictable. Our male hero, the dashing detective is named Romero, which I find somewhat entertaining and yet annoying at the same, I mean why not just call him Romeo? Anyway I’ve gotten off track. The plot is pretty good and you aren’t overly inundated with a bunch of boring details, besides all the protesting about not falling for the detective, or anyone else for that matter. The book wraps itself up in a nice neat bow but you certainly don’t see the ending coming. A nice pleasant enjoyable read especially for those of you who don’t care for profanity or sex scenes. You can safely read this book.
I could not put this book down once I started reading it this morning. The characters are extremely likable. You want to keep reading to find out what happens to them. The plot has some nice twists so you do not guess the ending. I want to continue with the series. This book stands alone.
This book was a good solid read. I’d totally try another future book by this author!
You can check out my booktube video review at https://youtu.be/rz-txQnN3_M
or read my review on my blog at https://lisasiefert.com/book-review-murder-curlers-and-cream-by-arlene-mcfarlane-a-valentine-beaumont-mystery-book-1/
Murder is a permanent solution!
Valentine Beaumont is already struggling to keep the doors to her beauty salon open. Having one of her best customers murdered on the facial bed in the middle of the day is not the sort of publicity she wants for her business. Val is determined to find the murderer regardless of Detective Romero’s warning to not meddle in the case and leave it to the Rueland Police Department. She doesn’t know what annoys her more – his cynical attitude or her unexplainable reaction to him.
The interactions between Phyllis and Max are hilarious and so are the many disasters that Phyllis inflicts on the customers! This is an entertaining cozy murder mystery. The plot has some good twists, plenty of humor, and a good mystery to solve.
If you are looking for crazy antics in the style of Stephanie Plum then you’ll want to check out Murder, Curlers, and Cream by Arlene McFalane. If you are looking for a traditional cozy mystery, this one may not be for you.
I really enjoyed it because I was a fan of Janet Evanovich, but stopped reading her around book 17 because I just couldn’t handle the love triangle anymore, and I’ve been looking for a new series to take its place. A love triangle hasn’t started up yet in the series, but it looks like in book two, Jock deMarco will start working at Valentine’s salon, so we shall see if a love triangle develops between those two and Detective Romero. As long as it’s well written and doesn’t drag on then I’m good.
The crazy antics of her employees and the locals who stop by are what really had me enjoying this book. Max is awesome and I can’t wait to read more of his snark, and I am also looking forward to more of Val’s meddling mom. Phylis was a horrible character, but McFarlane wrote her so well! And what Phylis did to the customers added a cringe worthy level of humor to the book.
If you’re looking for a light mystery with lots of steamy thoughts of sex, snarky employees, buildings on fire, kidnappings, and a lot more crazy shenanigans then you will want to start reading the Valentine Beaumont Mysteries!
I may look for her other books. Light reading and fun escape.
This was an interesting story, funny in some ways but not hysterical. It took me a while to get it read, busy so couldn’t read without stopping which for me is not a good way to read a book. I like to read all the way through once I start. I would recommend it.
Great book
Great cozy mystery!
This was a fun read! Love the characters!
Laugh out loud!
Love a story you can read at the end of the day and laugh your cares away