Carnage in a Pear Tree

Marshmallow Hollow Mysteries, Book 4

By: Dakota Cassidy

Narrated by: Hollie Jackson

Welcome to Marshmallow Hollow, Maine, a holiday mystery, where it's all Christmas all the time and murder is hung by the chimney with care...

Hellooo! I'm at it again, and only a day after my last run-in with a killer!

Hobbs and I are growing closer and closer, but there always seems to be a mystery waiting for us just around the corner, nipping at our heels and thwarting our hot romance.

A very nice waiter named Joey Scarpetti, from the Marshmallow Hollow Ski Lodge, is dead, and it happened in my backyard in my pear tree, no less. So what's a girl to do but investigate?

On top of that, I catch Hobbs having coffee with a very stylish, flawlessly beautiful natural blonde (hair envy here!), and I'm in a bit of a tizzy.

But when I have a gruesome vision of a young woman, so grief-stricken she wants to leave this plane forever, I know I have to find out if my vision is from a future event—and if so, is there a way I can prevent a horrible tragedy?

All bets are off the table as I hunt for a killer and try and save a young woman's life!

©2021 Dakota Cassidy (P)2022 Tantor

Best in the Series, But Too Dark for Some

This series impresses me with character development, engaging mysteries, delightful magic, humor, and emotion. But I want to be very clear this is significantly darker than most cozy supernatural mysteries. So I am going to mention trigger warnings for the follow topics: suicide, revenge porn, descriptions of murder scene body trauma. I just want to put these up front as I know even the mention of these topics will mean some won't want to listen. This definitely came closer to the line of urban fantasy but is no where near that level of grit, however this is significantly darker than your standard Kristin Painter or Danielle Garrett story. That said I really do love the growing relationships with Halliday, her boyfriend Hobbs, her hummingbird familiar Atticus, the reindeer that is her reincarnated Nana, and law enforcement friend Styles. There is always a large cast of characters that feel pretty fleshed out and the tension and emotion in these stories is intense but feels more serious than over the top which you usually get in other cozies--moments of real heartbreak and scary as well as believable friendships and dating. Even though things will wrap up all right every time I still feel nervous at the climax. The humor is fantastic and the love in the friendships feels genuine. Truly if you are not put off by the trigger warning topics this series really is a solid new supernatural cozy. This is the first series of Dakota Cassidy's I've ever listened to. I say that because I don't know how it compares and I know she has several other well established series and sometimes folks are attached to prior series and if this is different they may not enjoy it but I can't speak to that either way. I also want to mention that Hollie is not my favorite narrator, she is also not the worst but I'm not a fan of her choices for voices all the time. In particular I noticed a character's accent changed because their dialogue carried between chapters and it is clear Hollie took a break and came back to start the next chapter and forgot that she gave the character a different accent in the prior chapter. Also because of the large cast you start to get repetitive voices. I also cannot listen to this at regular speed because she speaks so slowly and appreciate that you can speed things up on Audible. Fortunately the writing is so engaging I am willing to forgive these minor issues and preferences. Unlike some cozy series I feel like this improves with every volume and I am excited for the next. If you like magic, tension, chasing down mysteries, humor, light romance, community camaraderie, and a little darker than your average cozy I highly recommend this series.