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.