The Reverend Annabelle Dixon Cozy Mysteries: Books 1-8

Golden Big Box Sets

By: Alison Golden, Jamie Vougeot

Narrated by: Penny Scott-Andrews

Length: 35 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Meet Reverend Annabelle Dixon, a madcap lady vicar with a taste for sweets and a nose for crime who lives in the village of Upton St. Mary. Usually.

Charming, slightly gauche, very tall, this thirty-something priest has just been appointed to the pastoral St. Mary’s Church, in the picturesque village of Upton St. Mary, Cornwall, England.

As Annabelle faithfully ministers her quaint parish, trouble seems to follow in her footsteps. Instead of her beloved tea and cake, she is regularly served a heaping plate of murder. Now if only she could have a second helping of handsome Inspector Mike Nicholls….

You'll love this cozy series because everyone loves mysteries with comedy, great food, and intrigue.

**These books are clean, cozy mysteries that contain no swearing or graphic descriptions of violence or bedroom activities.**

This digital box set contains all eight mysteries in this best-selling series:

Death at the Café

Murder at the Mansion

Body in the Woods

Grave in the Garage

Horror in the Highlands

Killer at the Cult

Fireworks in France

Witches at the Wedding

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Start The Reverend Annabelle Dixon cozy mysteries today. A series you won't want to pause!

©2022 Alison Golden (P)2023 Alison Golden

Fun and Engaging

The mysteries got better towards the end. Initially the characters felt like your very good friends who drive you crazy. But the last few books were done very well. I can honestly say that I learned a lot from the characters. As a woman who does not always fit the mold I love women like Annabelle who show up in texts as examples of this! But I did find her Church Secretary to be too old fashioned in her thinking. I love tradition but I also love the balance of tradition and modernity. 🥰 I think this was very reflective of the current times. I am curious to see what else the author creates!

Turn the narration speed down to make it more tolerable

The stories are good but the narrator is painful. Slow it down and it reduces the squeaking and screechiness.

Good stories as always

Book 1 – Death at the Café

Annabel is to meet her childhood friend that she hasn’t seen since she became a minister and Mary became a Nun.

When she gets to the rendezvous place, Mary is almost in a panic as a woman who Mary was supposed to meet about possible financing for a hospital in Africa where Mary was stationed. fell over dead as soon as they met.

Actually, the young woman was NOT who Mary was expecting to meet, because she was expecting a much older woman.

Shortly afterwards, Mary and Annable meet the elderly lady at her home only to have her also die suddenly. Making both Mary and Annable the prime suspects.

Book 2 - Murder at the Manor

It’s now three years later and we find Annabel at a Vicar in the village of Upton St. Mary.

With rumors abounding about a new resident who moved into a manor just outside the village.

Annabel goes to visit only to find a body instead of having a nice visit.

Phillipa accuses Annabel of kleptomania as some of the cupcakes she makes on a daily basis keep disappearing.

Pro’s:

Developed characters, and a solid story along with some humor to keep things light.

Con’s:

While it is an enjoyable story as all of Alisons are to read.

One of my pet peeves are when the murderer is introduced so late in the story.

I spent 19+ chapters trying to figure out who the murderer is only to find that I’ve wasted all of that time as none of the current characters were guilty.



Book 3 – Body in the Woods



A young boy finds what appears to be a human bone in a shallow grave.
This starts off a cold case of approximately 20 years.
It involves two sisters and their friends just before one of the sisters disappears.


Meanwhile, both Inspector Nicholls and Phillipa are behaving oddly.



Book 4 - Body in the Garage

Annabel has a problem with her vehicle, she parks on the side of the road and walks to the local garage.

When nobody greets her or answers her calling out to them, she checks the garage and finds the owner's body under a vehicle.

There’s lots going on in this story, with the normal charitable donations lacking, and many of the men keep disappearing for hours at a time.

Book 5 – Horror in the Highlands

Annabelle goes to visit her brother and niece in Scotland. She meets an elderly couple who had purchased titles and three-square feet of pasture of a castle on the isle from the internet.
With the theft of some valuables from the church safe, and a murder that Might be connected to it. And no way for the police to get to the island because of a storm. Annabelle is up to her cassock in another investigation.
Alison's stories are great reads with descriptions of scenery that make you want to go and visit the places mentioned. This was a wonderful story that contained a little violence and some laugh out loud moments. I hope to see more of her brother and his family in future books.



Book 6 - Killer at the Cult


Annabelle is invited to observe a celebration with a group that many in the town consider a cult. When the celebration starts to get out of hand, Annabelle cuts through the woods to go to her car, in the process stumbles across the body of one of the members. When the visiting inspector arrests the father of one of the girls, Annabelle is not so certain they have the right person, and starts to investigate on her own at the request of the local constable.



Book 7 - Fireworks in France
Annabelle receives a surprise visit from her childhood best friend, Mary, who became a nurse and a nun while Annabelle when to Seminary to become a minister.

Mary is in distress as the Priest over her parish died suddenly while in the process of giving the Easter sermon. It appears his death was not an accident. And is hoping Annabelle will be able to offer her help and save the reputation of a young priest who is Mary’s friend.

To make matters worse. While they are investigating the Priest murder, the Mother Superior is found to have died also, Only Annabel believes her death to be suspicious.

Meanwhile, Mike has his own plans for the trip, and it didn’t matter where they went for him to set his plans in motion.

And while all of this is going on. Mary (who has been a nun for several years now) is being tested about her calling to the ministry. The only question is will she remain true to her calling, or will she look to begin a new path for her future?

While it took a bit for the story to develop, once it did start it was the type of story I’ve come to expect from this author, a solid mystery with developed characters and a good plotline. There is also a romantic jaunt in this one that’s a little more pronounced than usual. But it’s a bit funny and definitely laughable watching the threads come together.



Book 8 – Witches at the Wedding



This series has memorable characters that feel like family that I always look forward to getting to meet again.

Annabelle and Mike's wedding is closing in fast.

And poor Phillipa doesn’t know what’s going on with the Bride to Be.

She’s more interested in another murder than finalizing her wedding in less than a week's time.

Apparently, this book will close out the Reverend Anabelle Dixon Mystery series.

I’m really sad to see this series end as book one Death at the Café was my first mystery by author Alison Golden.

All of the books in this series can be read as standalone books.

Including the last two which cover the engagement and wedding.


As this was the Audible option I listened to this time.

While I give the series an overall 4 stars.

I did not really enjoy this particular narrator.

I can only give the narrator 3 stars. She did an acceptable job for most of the characters.

My problem was when she did the voice for Mary, Annabel, or when a character was excited or overly worried. The narrator's voice would shoot to an extremely high pitch that was uncomfortable and sometimes even painful to listen to. With her accent I found myself backing up the recording in several places to understand what was said.

Horrible narrator

This was painful to listen to. The narrator has a high squeaky pitch breaking voice. Unpleasant voice.

Terrible narration :(

This was hard to listen to. I could not get through even half of the first book in this bundle. The frenetic, high-pitched screechy voice is unpleasant and difficult to follow. The “woe-is-me” tone used for one of the characters makes the character sound so inane. :( I should’ve tried a sample first

Couldn't even Finish book 1

horrid Narrative high pitched sqeeky voice for main characters. and accents are atrocious. and she speaks so fast I had to repeat chapter 1, 3 times just to be sure I didn't miss something important

Blahgh

The narrator destroys these stories. Her high pitch nasal cackle is painful to listen to.
She is unable to keep one character from bleeding into another, half the time you can’t tell which one is talking. This time, she so overacted the reverend’s crush that she came accross as stupid and ridiculous, the two women from London were something from an over exaggerated joke. I couldn’t listen any more, like fingernails on a chalk board
Don’t waste your money or time on this series unless a new narrator is hired Mo

Very Disappointed

Having thoroughly enjoyed the Inspector Graham series, I was looking forward to this eight book 35+hours of listening for one credit. Unfortunately, what is described as humorous is nothing but SILLY. I blame a lot of this feeling to the screeching narration by Penny Scott-Andrews. At times I thought a little more mature voice could have made a decent character out of Annabelle. I listened to all eight books, often leaving the room and coming back to realize I didn't miss a thing. I would not recommend listening to this in the car, the screeching can be very distracting , especially if you were tuned out as happened to me often.