Mystery Series: Shady Hollow

Happy Friday everyone, and today I’m back with a post about a slightly unconventional mystery series – the Shady Hollow books by Juneau Black because book six, Mockingbird Court, came out on Tuesday.

This is a cozy crime series with a difference – it’s set in a small town with all the usual small businesses and our detective is a newcomer to the town who has just started a job as a reporter at the local paper. But the difference is that everyone in the town is a woodland creature – Vera Vixen the reporter is a fox, police deputy Orville Braun is a bear, there’s a Owl who runs the bookshop, a panda who runs a restaurant. You get the idea and if you think about it too much, none of it makes sense. But as someone who grew up playing with Sylvanian Families toys, I can totally get on board with it.

Apart from the whole talking animals thing, they follow the cozy crime series pattern in a fairly standard way – each book has a different murder, there’s a running story line with a romance for Vera and there are friendships and tensions in the community that develop as the series goes on. Juneau Black (who is a pen name for a duo of authors) have created a of belief system for the animals that plays a role in their lives and creates events for the animals to focus on – and for murders to occur at. And like so many non animal cozy crimes, being a reporter gives Vera a reason to be digging into crimes and – spoiler alert – dating a police officer provides her with more details than she could get alone creates tension when it needs to when she’s butting up against the officials.

The new book is Mockingbird Court and is set in the run up to the town’s Harvest Festival. According to the blurb, a famous author who is suspected of murder back in the big city sneaks into town, claiming to be innocent. Vera starts investigating, but finds that she may even be implicated herself. I’ve enjoyed reading the five previous books in the series and I’m looking forward to reading this one when the Kindle price drops to something sensible!

These are available on Kindle and Kobo as well as in paperback, although I’ve never seen the paperbacks in the shops in the UK but that might be different in the US

Have a great weekend everyone.