This had all the flavour of a farce. Good natured humour, an absolute sans froid when describing murder and so many connections, links, lost loves and mad unknowns that made the murder all rather jolly. The book bounces along in amateur detective mode with the village characters getting more rounded as their past in revealed in all its bizarre finery. The bumbling nature of the plot is great and made it a fun and lovely read.

Daphne Brewster and her family are settling into a wholesome new relaxed pace of living in the sleepy Norfolk village of Pudding Corner after recently moving from their busy, stressful lives in London.

When the local headmaster is found dead in his potting shed amongst his cabbage in his allotment, the village is buzzing with speculation, gossip and pointing fingers and Daphne can't resist doing some digging of her own to find out who killed Mr Papplewick herself.

My Bookish Thoughts 💬
I really enjoyed curling up under my sick blanket with a hot chocolate in hand and escaping into this cosy crime novel.

Being a city girl, I enjoyed immersing myself in the lives of the colourful residents of a seemingly quiet and peaceful village community and getting to know their back stories and links to each other.

After finishing this novel, I sat pondering for a while on whether the definition of great cosy crime should include reveals that take you by suprise or, if the writing should assist you in uncovering the criminal and their motive yourself. After some reflection I shifted from believing it should be a suprise to concluding the essence of this genre is for you to have fun with and play amateur sleuth yourself, unravelling the mystery.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Dialogue Publishing for the gifted ARC copy.

There are lots of colourful and quirky local characters here to keep things interesting. The amount of secrets seething under the surface though is astounding but at the same time fairly usual for a small English village setting. An interesting and unusual amateur detective with a large busy family make this a different read. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Daphne Brewster moves from south London to the sleepy village of Pudding Corner with her young family. She enjoys making new friends, starting a new business and learning to garden. But when the local headmaster is found dead in his potting shed on his allotment she soon comes to realise that not all is as it seems.

When her new friend Minerva is accused of being his murderer, Daphne decides to investigate. Her clumsy efforts to find out the truth make her question her assumptions about the local villagers and lead her into jeopardy.

Colourful local characters and an interesting amateur detective make this a fun read.

An enjoyable cosy crime.

A really gripping read, I thought the characters were intriguing and I'm going to look out for more by this author.

3.75 stars!
What a delightful cosy crime novel this was!

I was drawn to this book based on the description and glad I was able to read it! What appears to be a nice quiet town is in actuality a town full of secrets. It was a joy to read and solve the crime alongside the main character, Daphne. While I did predict the ending it didn’t take away from the enjoyment of the story line or the characters.

The multiple pov were at times confusing, especially when they changed in the chapters rather than strictly dedicating one chapter per view, but you get use to it. It helped enrich each character and their development as well as their involvement in the many secrets that were discovered. I also really enjoyed how we had characters of all ages, backgrounds and races in this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dialogue Books for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley, however all opinions are my own.

How I read this book: eBook.

So the reason I wanted to read this book is because the description of this book sounded like it would be such a good read. I'm not going to lie, as much as I did enjoy the overall story, I just found myself a little bored through some of the book. All of the juicy bits of the book were so exciting and took me by surprise that when it come down to the "cosiness" of it all I just wanted more! I do understand that this is to show how unchanging this small village in Norfolk is supposed to be and to give us such a huge amount of information of the characters within but all I could keep my mind on was who did it? This however gave us multiple perspectives throughout the book, mainly focusing on Daphne's, and this was something I really enjoyed. I am also so appreciative of the author for putting who everyone is in the start of the book with a little description of each character because then if I ever got anyone mixed up (which I did because I'm really bad with names) I was able to go back to the start and just give myself a little reminder. I also found it really difficult to feel empathy with a lot of the characters because the whole village was honestly given off rich white tory vibes, and I found myself only loving 3 characters throughout the book. I did not expect the twists and turns that we were going to get throughout the book (and trust me there were a bunch of them!) and I actually found myself audibly gasping. It was also interesting to see how differently Daphne was treated by certain characters due to her being a POC, as well as Minnerva for her being a traveller. It definitely puts into perspective how nasty the real world can be. I would recommend this to anyone who loves a good cosy mystery book as it is such an easy read. However as much as I love mystery I think maybe cosy mystery isn't the genre for me.

My Favourite Characters:

Patsy: Okay so Patsy is one of the side characters but I actually adored her regardless of how nosey she was. I loved getting to learn more about her throughout the book and I loved the character growth we got with her.

Minerva: Minerva is such a gentle angel and I loved her so much. I just wanted to wrap her up and give her the biggest cuddle.

Daphne: Okay so yes Daphne is the main character but she's got a heart of gold and took no shit. I was rooting for her throughout the whole book!

My Least Favourite Characters:

Marianne: Marianne was the one who gave off the biggest tory vibes. I honestly hated her so much and whilst most of the other characters seemed to gain some redeeming qualities, she absolutely did not.

Augusta: Listen, I did end up feeling sorry for Augusta. It didn't make me like her any more though. She does seem to have a little bit of character growth at the end but it wasn't enough for me to forgive everything that she had done up until that point.

Timothy: Timothy had literally the smallest part in the story but I loathed him. I'm so glad we didn't get any more of him within the book.

(If you'd like to see more of my reviews please go to my blog:
https://doesden.blogspot.com/)

3.5 stars
Im partial to a cosy murder mystery and this delivered, what appears to be a cosy village turns out to be one filled with many long kept secrets.
Daphne moves from London to escape the crime and busy lifestyle, only to find herself wrapped up in a murder with many hidden secrets being uncovered along the way, and while I did guess who the murderer was this didn’t take away from the enjoyment of the story line!
I didn’t expect this to be multi pov in part so this took me some getting used to when there was so many characters involved but once I got to grips with these I enjoyed all the story lines of each character each with a piece to the puzzle

I have just finished The Potting Shed Murder and what absolute delight it was! I have been eager to read this since I heard about it at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival so I was absolutely ecstactic when I saw it pop up on Netgalley.

Daphne Brewster and her family have recently moved from bustling London to the wonderful sounding Pudding Corner in Norfolk. A cosy sounding village and a quiet life is just what the Brewster family need following hectic careers and soaring private school prices made them rethink their lifestyle.

However, when the beloved local headmaster Charles Pappleworth is found dead at his allotment, although tragic, people are convinced it was natural causes. He was teacher and the stresses had obviously contributed to his heart attack........... When word of murder spreads, we slowly learn that there are a few suspects that would have liked to have seen the end of Charles.

I absolutely loved Daphne and her investigation, she is like a younger Miss Marple! The village characters are a wonderful addition and I particularly loved hearing about the grumpy Warburton sisters, Nancy and Patsy who run the local store - their backstory was written perfectly and gives you a greater understanding of why they are like they are.

I am eagerly awaiting the next book in the series!

Pudding Corner. Such a nice, quiet village after crime-ridden London.

Or so Daphne Brewster thinks.

Until one wet, stormy night, when a body is discovered in a potting shed at the allotments.

And it turns out that more than one villager has a motive for their demise...

Excellent, hopefully the start of a super series

Daphne Brewster's move - with her white husband and biracial kids - to the wilds of the English countryside and the quaint village of Pudding Corner has gone unexpectedly well. All three of her children love it there, and Daphne herself, as a black British woman, has found the adjustment easier than she expected, despite the alarming night time quietude of her immediate surroundings.

She loves their new home, and has even began a small business of her own in the village, customising and restoring furniture, that is in great demand. In the process, she has made friends with Minerva, a shy woman who is part of a Wiccan community in the woods. Minerva's son Silvanus soon becomes fast friends with the Brewster children.

Still, all this is about to go pear-shaped with the mysterious death of the populous school headmaster, Charles Pappleworth. Because in this safe little corner of the bucolic countryside, it turns out that Charles Pappleworth has been murdered!

When suspicion unexpectedly falls on Minerva, Daphne throws herself into Miss Marple-style amateur sleuthing, to her husband's immense dismay, and with some entirely unexpected consequences...

This is a charming and wholesome take with well drawn characters, great good humour, and a surprisingly long suspect list. A very enjoyable read. It gets 3.5 stars.

Daphne tells herself at the end of the book to never ever ever talk to strangers again, but how would that be possible in a village that was completely new to her and therefore everyone unknown to her after she left London?!

Don't be fooled by the low-key, toned down cover as this is a book bursting with secretive and yet quite colorful characters! Yes, there is death amongst the dahlia's, but there is so much more than that...

Good thing I saw on Goodreads that this is a first in a series. I honestly can't wait :)

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book.