Alice Beeton lives in a basement flat in London with her wonderful dog, Agatha (in honor of Agatha Christie). She loves reading mysteries as well as cooking and baking. She's a distant relative of Mrs Beeton, of household management fame and she runs the Good Household Management Agency, along with her best friend from school, Jinx. These two couldn't be more different, but they make a great team. This comes in handy when Alice turns sleuth after one of the women she's placed in service, Enya, ends up dead in the early hours of the new year. Enya just turned up out of the blue and happened to be there when Alice took an urgent call from a woman desperately looking for help over the festive season. No one else was available and Enya seemed perfect, so Alice only did a cursory background check and sent her off. Who was Enya, and what's up with the husband and wife she was working for? Who wanted her dead? With the help of Agatha and her friends, Alice is determined to find out.

I thought this was a delightful cozy Christmas mystery. The setting is modern, but the book has the feel of one set in earlier times, which I loved. I'm a big fan of Christmas cozies, so that fit the bill, too. Agatha made me laugh more than once. I enjoyed the descriptions of food and of the Christmas holiday spent at Alice's family home with her brother. The recipes scattered throughout added to the vibe and were a good reflection of Alice's personality. Secondary storylines, such as that of Alice's relationship with her upstairs neighbors and building manager also added to the setting. The mystery itself was well done, even if chunks of it seemed quite implausible. Then again, it's a cozy and that's to be expected, I think, so I was happy to just suspend my disbelief and ride along. As I understand it, this is the first in a series and I would definitely read on. I'd be happy to spend more time with Alice, Agatha, and all their friends.

This was an artfully woven but extremely fun crime read featuring the fictional Alice Beaton (distant relative of the Mrs Beaton) who also shares a love of cooking. Alice runs a household management agency placing trusted staff into affluent households, when a new appointed housekeeper is found dead during a New Year’s Eve party Alice finds herself drawn into finding out what happened.

The characters are engaging and the reason for the murder was unexpected but the plot was written well enough so not to make it implausible. There were lots of minor characters in this who all turned out to have a role to play in helping solve the crime making it very well plotted and quite fun to see how they are relevant to the story. I personally wasn’t interested in the recipes that interspersed the story, I think I would have preferred them together at the back but otherwise it read very well and if it proves to be the start of a series I would definitely read more. 7/10

This was a fun cozy mystery. I liked the MC - her insecurities and strengths made her an engaging character. The mystery itself was interesting although a bit predictable for me. I did not love all the recipes. It's just not something I'm interested in and so it felt like a distraction. I think the series has potential and it is clearly being set up to have a sequel. I think the author built a good cast of supporting characters that I would like to see more of.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

Alice Beeton, proprietor of the Good Household Management Agency (and a distant relativeof THAT Mrs Beeton), provides domestic staff to the extremely well-heeled. When a potential new recruit lands in the office at exactly the same time that an urgent call comes in for a housekeeper, it looks like good luck.

But it isn't.

When the new housekeeper is found murdered at the house she was placed at, Alice feels morally obliged to find out what happened...

Brilliant. Hope this is the start of a series.

As someone who once had to write an essay on Isabelle Beeton's monster of a book (which I also had to read, so many things preserved in aspic, yuk) I was pleased that this was so much more fun. I loved Alice and Agatha, Jinx, Helly, Jacques, Massoud and all their pals. What a crack team Alice assembled to help her undercover mission. Absolutely delightful stuff, I really hope there's more to come.

Side note to HQ - please sort out the formatting on the recipes for the ebook, if they go out as is, they're a mess. I'm sure you'll fix it, but just FYI.