Very good read. The characters and the settings were great. The ending was a shocker...didn't expect the killer's identity. Thank you Faith Martin for this mystery. Looking forward to reading more.

I'm a big Faith Martin fan, and couldn't be happier with this first book in a series (new to me) which was previously published under the pen name of Joyce Cato. I'm not sure if anyone does female characters in this genre better than Ms. Martin, and Jenny Starling is perfect as a traveling cook ( so lots of food and cooking), and an assertive amateur sleuth. Loved it!

Jenny is hired to cater a 21st birthday party. Just before the party takes place a body is found in the lake but the party carries on as planned. The twins are poisoned and only one survives. As the caterer Jenny is prime suspect and tries to catch the real killer to clear her name.

Its an enjoyable and easy read but its annoying just how often we get physical descriptions of Jenny that are far from flattering.

Over recent months I've become a great fan of cozy mysteries so, when I saw a new series featuring Jenny Starling being launched, I knew I had to read "The Birthday Mystery." Also, it has a culinary theme which I love and a little light humour.

First, we are introduced to Jenny who is catering for the twenty-first birthday party of upper-class twins, Alicia and Justin. In her late twenties, Jenny is an impressive woman. Curvaceous and sexy, she’s a modern single woman, living the lifestyle that suits her – that of a travelling cook. Her famous father is a ‘celebrity’ cook, divorced from Jenny’s mother. Jenny is happy travelling the country catering for events and cooking great food. She is on a mission to bring back traditional home cooked food and to offer new and exciting recipes made with fresh ingredients. She arrives at the twins family country house located in a picturesque and charming village and is immediately met by the police. A young man has drowned in the pond. Was it an accident or murder?

The birthday party goes ahead and then, just after midnight, everyone gathers for a champagne toast . . . and one of the guests falls down dead. The police are baffled and there is a whole party full of suspects.

Jenny finds crime very distracting, especially when there is chocolate to temper or pike to poach. She is very observant, with an agile mind and an amazing ability to interpret clues and hidden meanings. Her wit and sense of humour help her sanity when all around her, people are dropping like flies. When it comes to someone possibly adding the extra ingredient of poison to her own precious recipes, Jenny isn't going to take it lying down. She has a reputation to protect.

Jenny Starling won't stop until the murderer is found.

There are many suspects in this mystery, clues a-plenty and red herrings all the way through this book. It was a thoroughly satisfying read and I often found myself asking the same questions as Jenny and I was kept in suspense to the end. The pacing in "The Birthday Mystery" was very good and I never lost interest, as it wasn't long before something intriguing would happen. Things came together for a great finish and wrapped everything up very neatly.

I'm definitely looking forward to reading the next novel featuring Jenny Starling very soon and other books by the author, Faith Martin. "The Birthday Mystery" whets your appetite for more to come.

My thanks to NetGalley, Joffe Books and the author for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel.

Brilliant from page one. Jenny sounds like my hero. The way the author described Jenny and the scenes in the book were spectacular. The premise of this book was so fun and unexpected. ^The mystery in this book was well developed and made me curious from the start. Thank you for allowing me to read this awesome book.

I was first introduced to Faith Martin’s writing, when I was invited to take part in the blog tour (by the lovely Jill Burkinshaw) for the second book in the series featuring DI Hilary Greene, also published by Joffe Books. Since that time, I have become a huge fan of hers. I have read each and every book of hers that Joffe has released. When I heard that she was releasing a new series featuring a new female lead, I knew that I just had to drop everything to read it. I was not to be disappointed either because I really enjoyed reading ‘The Birthday Mystery’ but more about that in a bit.
The new female lead in this series is called Jenny Starling, who is a caterer. Trouble seems to follow her around because she turns up and people start dying in mysterious circumstances. She is a bit like Jessica Fletcher from ‘Murder She Wrote’ in that respect. Jenny certainly stands out because she is rather tall for a woman and she is well built as it were. Put it this way, once you have met her, you certainly won’t forget her. She seems to intimidate people but I wasn’t sure if that was because of her size or because of the way she speaks to people or the confidence that seems to pour out of her. Jenny certainly doesn’t take any unnecessary crap and she seems to poke her nose into everybody else’s business. She seems to have a knack that means that people open up to her whereas they wouldn’t necessarily open up to police.
‘The Birthday Mystery is a different kind of read to the Detective Inspector Hilary Greene series. By that I mean that the main female lead has a different background, a different personality and a different style. The author seems to have changed her writing style a bit and I did wonder if that was because she was adopting a similar manner in her writing to that of Jenny. I hope that makes sense. That said, it didn’t take me long to get used to the different writing style and female lead and pretty much by the time I got to the bottom of the page, I knew that I had found another cracking series with a female lead that I couldn’t fail to warm to. This book soon became addictive for me. It isn’t a particularly long book and I seemed to race through it. I was so focussed on the book, the mystery, the storylines and the characters that I didn’t notice just how quickly the pages were turning- it was almost as if they were turning themselves. Before I realised what was happening I had finished the book, which I had mixed feelings about. I was pleased to finish because it meant that I knew how this part of the series finished but I was enjoying the book so much that I just wanted it to continue. Reading ‘The Birthday Mystery’ was much like being on an occasionally scary and unpredictable rollercoaster ride with several twists and turns along the way.
In short, ‘The Birthday Mystery’ was certainly different and I really enjoyed reading it. I would say that Jessica Fletcher should move over because there’s a new female amateur sleuth in town. I would recommend it to other readers but please bear in mind that it is different to the Hilary Greene series. I can’t wait to read the next instalment of the Jenny Starling series. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is 4* out of 5*.

It is always nice to get in at the beginning with a new series, especially from an author like Faith, who’s Hilary Greene books were a nice distraction from the other crime books I have read over the last year.

This new series follows a chef turned amateur detective called Jenny Starling who turns up at a birthday party, which she is catering for, just after a young man has been found dead. She thinks something odd is going on and this is proven correct when the birthday boy also dies and the birthday girl is taken to hospital seriously ill.

To start with the police investigate Jenny herself as they think someone has poisoned them. This leads Jenny to investigate the murders herself and try to find out what happened as it is her reputation on the line.

Overall this book took a bit of time to get into, but it was quite a nice easy read and will look forward to reading the next in the series.

I was very eager to start reading the first book in this series by Faith Martin, because her series with Hilary Green I found very nice reads - not too spectacular, but very hard to put away once I started reading. Were my expectations met? Well, yes and no. Let me start with a short excerpt: "Jenny was six feet and one inch tall, with a heavy bone structure that was well padded, and curvaceous in many places."
So far, so good. Excellent! Jenny is a caterer and cook; she caters for all kinds of people and suddenly you see before your eyes a woman that, indeed, would look like someone who is healthy and likes cooking. Her dress size is eighteen, Faith Martin informs us.
And?
Well, this book would have been worth 4 stars if not the author had kept coming back to tell us about Jenny's looks. Every third page we read that she is big, big, big.
But she isn't! Not really. Although the áverage height of British women was 5"5 in 2017 (I've looked it up, of course), 6"1 is not that much taller and certainly not unseen. And we don't want a caterer and cook with a dress size zero, so eighteen is perfect.
Jenny is a very good caterer and cook. And in this story, we read so much from her actions and thoughts that I have the feeling I've known her for a long time already. The Greer family, whose young daughter hired Jenny to cater for a large 21st birthday party for her and her brother, are real life people too and all in all, the book is a good example of 'cozy mystery' without the lack of depth some have, and with a lot of humour too.
So why telling the readers every third page about Jenny's figure? It gets a annoying, I'm sorry to say.
I'm looking forward to the second book in this series. I hope the story is just as nice as the first one and we get to know a lot more about Jenny motives and actions - we now know very well how she looks now.

Thanks to Netgalley and Joffe Books for this digital copy.

I am a big fan of Faith Martin and the Hillary Greene series so was looking forward to reading this new series. Although I found it a bit slower going than the Hillary books there was plenty of twists and turns to keep me interested and it's set up nicely for future books in getting to know more about the main character Jenny. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Great book, plenty of twists and turns throughout. Devoured it in one sitting.
Full marks for this.
Thanks for letting me review

I'm so glad that this series of books has been released again, if you enjoy an English murder mystery with a strong emphasis on whodunnit, this book should meet your expectations.
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Jenny Starling is a striking character, Amazonian-like in her stature and personality, she is a travelling cook but has an uncanny knack for Murder, solving it, that is. She has an uneasy relationship with the local police, rather like Miss Marple, but she is much younger.

The supporting casts of suspects are well-written and the plot is full of clues and misinformation. I did work out what happened but this didn't spoil my enjoyment of this very readable story, I can't wait to read the next one.

I received a copy of this book from Joffe Books via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Jenny Starling is a famous, or should I say infamous, travelling cook. She’s invited to The Beeches, a beautiful country house, to cater the 21st birthday of twin Alicia and Justin Greer but before she arrives the body of young gardener Jimmy Speight is found dead in a pond in the grounds of the house.

It’s ruled an accident but Jenny has her doubts especially as one of the guest falls down dead and another is taken ill during the birthday party.

Warned not to meddle by the police Jenny can’t resist snooping but can she figure out who the killer is before anyone else gets hurt?

So this is the first in a new series by Faith Martin (her of DI Hillary Greene fame) but unlike her other novels this is a little more of a classic cosy mystery focusing on an amateur sleuth.

The Birthday Mystery is a novel you can really get your teeth into, with a tasty mystery and sumptuous sounding food which made me feel very hungry while I was reading it!

The setting is also a little nod to the likes of Agatha Christie with a large country house complete with a resident cook, gardener and even a butler. It’s even near a small village where everybody knows everybody else’s business!

I felt that Jenny Starling is going to be one of those Marmite characters, you either love her or hate her. She’s an impressive and intimidating figure at six foot one and doesn’t suffer fools or militant vegetarians! Her dad is also a famous chef and her mum an eco warrior who is constantly getting arrested. I’d love to see a guest appearance from them in the future novels, I think they sound hilarious!

I did unfortunately figure out who the killer was quite quickly. Also I know this is an updated version of the original book but I felt there could have been a bit more done to bring it to the here and now as aspect of the story felt a little old fashioned and dated.

Overall The Birthday mystery a good cosy whodunnit that I’d recommend for those who love classic style mysteries.

Excellent book! Loved the characters and it was a great storyline. I would highly recommend this book.

After being hooked on the Hilary Greene series, I was looking forward to reading this new series. But I found this first story very hard going and didn’t hold my attention at all. I will try the next book because I really want to love these stories and maybe when I am more knowledgeable of the characters it will be easier to read,

As usual Faith gives us a brilliant mystery whodunnit that leaves you guessing until the last moment. Lovely t o get to know Jenny the cook who is employed for a birthday party and is excellent at sleuthing. Would recommend Faith Martin books, and, of course, this latest one to anyone.

Do you want to indulge in a nice, engaging and cozy mystery in this holiday season? Then look no further!

A house full of guests. A room full of suspects. A clever murderer. A baffling crime.

Our sharp-eyed and clever Jenny Starling is a cook who is hired to cater for the birthday party of the wealthy twins, Alicia and Justin. But as soon as she arrives at the mansion, she is informed of the drowning of the assistant gardener. Everyone, including the police put it down as an unfortunate accident. But when the birthday boy drops dead and the birthday girl is rushed to the hospital with little hope of recovery, Jenny realizes the two incidents may well be connected and is determined to identify the murderer and solve the mystery.

Thanks to Faith Martin, Joffe Books and the NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy.

The main character is Jenny Starling an experienced cook with a sharp mind. It seems she is followed by mysteries. She has been invited to cook for a birthday party for twins Justin and Alicia Greer but there is a death and Jenny gets drawn into the investigation.

This new character Jenny Starling is hopefully the start to a new series for Faith Martin and I look forward to the next book in the series

This was a great start to a new series! There were plenty of twists and plot to continue with in future books. I became invested in the characters and cannot wait to read more in the next book!

An old-fashioned murder mystery. A whodunnit and a whydunnit. It has a certain charm.

Took a little while to grow on me, but then it rattled along. An agreeable read.

A great tense read! Full of gripping moments and twists and turns.
The story was exciting to read and the characters were fleshed out well.