Food blogger Hope Early finds one item not on her scavenger hunt list—a dead husband . . . Between developing her food blog, Hope at Home, and choosing low-cal recipes for a feature in Cooking Now! magazine, Hope has a full plate. Still, she’s never too busy to compete in a Jefferson, Connecticut, tradition—the town’s annual scavenger hunt.But as she races with her team to check off the next … her team to check off the next item, Hope discovers a grisly surprise—the body of shady real estate developer Lionel Whitcomb, shot in a parking lot. His wife Elaine, who’s also in the hunt, gasps and nearly faints. But two other women on the scene cry out that their husband is dead.
It turns out this louse of a spouse was more than a little lax in legally divorcing his former wives. Did one of them put a bullet in the bigamist? Number one suspect and number three wife Elaine begs Hope to investigate. Now Hope is on a new kind of hunt—for a cold-hearted killer and triple widow-maker . . .
Includes Recipes from Hope’s Kitchen!
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Cozy Mystery With Food Porn Recipes
This is an intriguing cozy mystery concerning a bigamist. Our heroine is a food blogger and several great recipes are posted at the end of the book. The plot is just dandy! The author makes the story about more than just food. Although this book is third in the series, it stands alone with no problem. I love that this is a longer book that the reader can really get into. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.
Three Widows and a Corpse is the first book I’ve read in the Food Blogger Mysteries, and as with any good meal at a restaurant, I’ll be coming back for more. Debra Sennefelder does a fantastic job writing a protagonist that I would love to be, and Sennefelder already was, having ran a food blog for many years. I really enjoyed that Hope was a food blogger since in all the food cozies I’ve read the main character is usually a chef, baker, restaurant or cafe owner. Getting a glimpse into a food bloggers life was a fun treat.
As well as enjoying Hope’s character, Sennefelder works wonders with the rest of the people in the book. Quite a few I could see becoming friends with, and Sennefelder also gives us great quirky characters and antagonists that are, well… antagonizing.
What drew me to this book, besides the gorgeous house and landscaping on the cover, is the small town’s annual scavenger hunt. I’m always down for a scavenger hunt, escape room, or murder mystery party. While the scavenger hunt ended early, that’ll happen when you find a dead body, it was still a fun draw to the book. And the town of Jefferson, Connecticut seems adorable, someplace I would love to visit and look forward to continuing to read about in future books in the series.
Although I did know the killer early on, my podcast partner, Jessica, didn’t know until the reveal at the end. I’m going to say I knew just because I read a lot of cozies, and since this is the first one I’ve read of the Food Blogger Mysteries, this person just seemed to stand out to me. Perhaps if I started the series with book one, The Uninvited Corpse, I wouldn’t have been able to spot the murderer so soon or at all.
A great read and I’m looking forward to more in the Food Blogger mysteries, as well as trying out Sennefelder’s other series, The Resale Boutique Mysteries.
If you would like to hear about Debra Sennefelder’s upcoming books, writing style, and more, check out the author interview Jessica and I did with her on, Books Don’t Review Themselves.
Three Widows and a Corpse by Debra Sennefelder is a delightful cozy mystery and is the third in her Food Blogger Mystery series.
This is the first book I have read by this author, and the first in this series, and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is not necessary to read the previous, as the author did recap a few things for the reader, however I think I could have enjoyed it even more if I would have read the last two (and I will now!).
I enjoyed Hope, and I liked her character and personality. She was someone I could side with.
I enjoyed the murder/mystery component. It was intriguing, with multiple characters and motives, and engaging till the end.
A great book and great series.
5/5 stars
What a joy to spend some time with Hope and her family and friends. Being a food blogger isn’t as easy as spending time at home cooking and photographing the results. Hope works hard and now she is doing a spread on low calorie food for Cooking Now! magazine. At the same time she is involved in the town scavenger hunt. Now how much trouble can a scavenger hunt be? Well Hope seems to be a bit of a murder magnet and, sure enough, during the hunt she stumbles upon a very dead body. It’s a local, shady, real estate developer. If that’s not enough to deal with, Hope isn’t alone when she finds him – she has company. His wife is part of the scavenger hunt and her scream isn’t the only one heard. turns out two other women in the group scream that he’s their husband. Oops, that’s awkward. Sort of a case of who’s on first, etc. The big question isn’t just how did him in but what’s the story of three wives.
Hope has no intention of getting involved but one thing leads to another and despite the police taking a dim view of her even asking questions, she gets drawn into the hunt for the killer when another body turns up and a threat is made at Hope. Her boyfriend, who happens to be the police chief, wants her to stay far away from danger but that will ever happen with Hope. I enjoyed the puzzle with its twists and turns, causing me to pick the wrong suspect as the killer. Add to the cast of characters a cat, a dog and a chicken – plus a bit of romance and humor? It was the perfect reading escape.
This book was such an engaging read that kept me thinking and guessing the whole way through. Main character Hope has a lot going on, with renovating her farmhouse, writing posts for her blog, preparing entries for a cookbook, and putting time in for an assignment with a local magazine. When a local (not well-liked) man is killed, she still manages to make time to investigate, trying to get to the bottom of the unknown killer even if it puts her in danger. There are some strong suspects and weak alibis in this story, and another mysterious death makes Hope second guess herself. I was quite surprised by the reveal, which made a satisfying ending. I like the Food Blogger series and hope it continues!
I received an advance copy of this book. This review contains my honest thoughts and opinions.
From the first book in the series through Three Widows and a Corpse I have loved the Food Blogger Mystery series more and more. Debra Sennefelder has a way of pulling me not just into the mystery but into the world of ex-magazine editor and current blogger Hope Jefferson. This mystery is as complex as the earlier ones with the added complication of bigamy or is that polygamy? We already knew that the first victim was not a likeable person, but the death of the second victim hurt my heart. Yes, that is how much I was involved in the story.
When I read the first book, I was sad that few of Hope’s friends were nice people. In Three Widows and a Corpse that seems to have balanced better, but I enjoyed seeing her handle an awkward experience with one person that too many of us can relate to. I appreciated seeing more of Hope’s relationship with her sister Claire, so now my only wish is to see more of a certain police chief. We did get many bits of interaction between Nate and Hope; I am just greedy.
I requested this ARC from NetGalley because I have enjoyed the series so much. Three Widows and a Corpse is the best yet!
#NetGalley #ThreeWidowsandaCorpse
I enjoy Hope Early and the Food Blogger Mystery series. Hope is a naturally curious person and so when she stumbles across another body she once again asks the wrong questions and finds herself in the crosshairs of a killer. I genuinely like all of the main characters in the series. They all have something different to offer that complements Hope and as a result, they round out the story nicely. I like the way the author is writing in her romance with Ethan. It’s not full steam ahead but conscious of what went wrong in her marriage and so they are taking it slow and letting it develop naturally. There were plenty of suspects to keep the reader guessing as to the identity of the killer. There were three wives and some other individuals who all had very plausible motives to commit the crime. The author did a good job of peppering in clues along the way and while the identity of the killer was not a surprise to me, I did fall for a red herring that caused me to dismiss the character.
I am looking forward to reading more in this series and I will definitely be returning for the next book.
murder-investigation, cozy-mystery, amateur-sleuth, culinary
I never knew that there was such a thing as a food blogger!
We don’t get an extensive picture of the creep before he is murdered, but afterwards is a whole other story. He was a shady businessman facing probable felony charges, and it turns out that he never completely finalized the divorces from his first two wives (who just happened to be in town the day he got murdered) and his third wife is at least as obnoxious as one of the local reporters. Food blogger Hope has more than enough to keep her busy when she finds the body (another one!), but things only get worse as each of the widows keeps pointing at everyone else. Hope’s romantic interest is the local Chief of Police who wants her to stay out of the investigation, but life just doesn’t work that way!
It’s a good read with realistic characters and a sound mystery plot. I liked it.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Kensington Books via NetGalley.
Three Widows and a Corpse…the title drew me in. Hope Early, a professional food blogger, is going to be working with Cooking Now magazine for a few days cooking some of her recipes in their test kitchen. When not cooking she is a volunteer for her town’s Annual Scavenger Hunt which raises money for the community center. She arrives for her meeting at the Merrifield Inn with Jane who tells her about two new guests that have checked in. Neither of the two guests know each other but both share the same last name..Whitcomb. Which just happens to be the last name of the town’s rather shady real estate developer Lionel Whitcomb and his wife Elaine. Family? A relative? No one knows. Until the night of the scavenger hunt when Lionel is found murdered. Both women insist they are legally married to Lionel and have never divorced. Much to the dismay of her boyfriend who just happens to be chief of police Addie vows to get to the bottom of it. Does Lionel really have three wives? Or are they lying just to get part of his estate? Who killed him and why? This is a book you won’t want to put down! Descriptive characters and a well written mystery make this a must read. Plus there are some delicious recipes at the end of the book that will have you wanting to cook! I highly recommend this book!