Journaled to Death

December 2, 2019
Divorcée Mandy Meadows, the narrator of this good-natured series launch from Redmond (Grave Expectations), makes ends meet by working at the coffee bar of the University of Seattle Hospital, producing how-to vlogs with the help of her teenage daughter, Vellum, and renting out her basement to her amiable if trouble-prone cousin, Ryan, a maintenance worker at the hospital. One evening, their recording of a vlog on journaling is interrupted by mysterious sounds coming from the basement. Mandy investigates and finds Ryan lying dead at the bottom of the stairs, smelling of alcohol. Good-looking Det. Justin Ahola arrives and quickly ascertains that Ryan has been murdered. As Mandy digs deeper into Ryan’s professional and private life, she realizes that she didn’t know her cousin as well as she thought she did. The plot meanders along, buoyed by a steady stream of musings on nasty neighbors, her overbearing former mother-in-law, her lousy ex-husband, Ahola’s attractiveness, and the trials of child rearing, plus tips on journaling and vlogging. This is an easy-going, undemanding cozy. Agent: Laurie McLean, Fuse Literary.

December 1, 2019
Redmond forsakes Dickens' London (Grave Expectations, 2019, etc.) to menace a very contemporary heroine with murder and its fallout. You've got to feel for Amanda Meadows. When she finds her cousin Ryan Meadows dead at the bottom of her basement stairs, she realizes that she's lost both one of the few family members she can claim as her own since her recent divorce and a lodger who provided her with a small but steady income stream. With problem-drinking University of Seattle Hospital janitor Ryan gone, she can only count on her own job as a hospital barista, supplemented by her modest earnings from the lifestyle video blog she runs with Vellum Moffat, her 15-year-old daughter, to keep the ship afloat. And her woes deepen when Detective Justin Ahola informs her that Ryan was bludgeoned to death with Mandy's own hammer, making her a prime suspect. Even if Ahola ever decides that Mandy is no longer a person of interest, as of course he does, how much of an improvement is that? After all, she tells Reese O'Leary-Sett, a hospital nurse and rival vlogger, "It's not like a stranger killed him. It has to be someone I know." All in all, she'd prefer that the killer be one of Ryan's shady friends, Dylan Tran or Alexis Ivanova, or Crystal Roswell, her own next-door neighbor and Ryan's hookup--if only that wouldn't leave Crystal's son, Aiden, free to ride his skateboard at will over Mandy's lawn. It's probably too much to hope for that the culprit could be Cory Moffat, Mandy's well-heeled, good-for-nothing ex. But what if it's Dr. O'Halloran, the surgeon Mandy and her co-worker Kit Savva call Dr. O'Hottie? A middling demicozy with hints of romance, hints of crime, and a seemly moderation of information about video journaling.

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February 15, 2020
Mandy Meadows is a journaling vlogger who works with her teenage daughter when she's not at her shift at the hospital coffee shop. She rents her basement to her cousin Ryan to help pay the bills that her ex-husband neglects. When Ryan is found dead, lying on a journal at the bottom of her stairs, his death is termed murder from a hammer blow to the back of his head. Trying to clear herself, Mandy sets out to find her cousin's killer and learns that Ryan dabbled in drugs and women. Suspects in Ryan's murder include the negligent mother next door and Mandy's friend, both of whom slept with him; a competing blogger; two of Ryan's strange new acquaintances who had visited him last; a doctor who holds a grudge against Mandy for turning down a date with him; and even Mandy's ex-husband. When Mandy gets too close to the truth, will the handsome detective on the case be able to save her in time? This first in a series will keep cozy fans guessing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)