Thank you for the chance to read this book! I thought the plot was a solid 4 stars. The mystery was suspenseful enough to keep my attention. Ready for book 2 in the series!!

I'm not sure how I felt about this book - it didn't read as a murder mystery but it also wasn't QUITE fleshed out enough to be a character study. I'm intrigued enough to pick up the next book in the series!

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to receive this book for an honest review.

Unfortunately, I could not get into this book. I felt myself confused witht he characters. I kep putting the book down and picking it back up. But then I just gave up. I felt lost and could not relate.

I really enjoyed this book. It was different than anything else I've read recently. I couldn't put it down! I will keep an eye out for this author's future work!

Jennifer and her family are starting their new life in a small village in Brittany. The views are stunning, the bread is amazing, and the locals are mostly friendly. But life in France still has its perils . . .

It’s their first family Christmas in the village of Louennec and Jennifer decides to throw a party for some of the other expats.

The wine is flowing and her new friend Pippa’s homemade biscuits are going down a treat.

But before the festivities can really get started, they realise estate agent Adam is missing . . .

Jennifer and Pippa are horrified to find him face down in the fish pond. A tragic accident . . . or something more sinister?

Adam’s death shakes the whole community. All the Brits in the area bought their homes from him. Who would want to hurt him?

The French police are making slow progress. So Jennifer and Pippa start doing some digging. Can they solve the mystery before anyone else dies?

Really enjoyed this story from start to finish

I was so looking forward to this book as I have spent many very happy summers on the coast of Brittany in the very anglicised towns of St Malo and Dinard. I was disappointed, this was more of a book about the life ex pats in rural Brittany with some murders thrown in as an after thought, rather than a mystery or traditional murder book. As a tale of ex pat like it is a good read and obviously based on real experiences, I enjoyed reading about marital strife, local politics, how to become a baker and the rift between Bretons and the English in comers the murders took up 10% of the book and the background 90% and I prefer it the other way around. As I’ve said before, books are like people, you like some, you don’t like others, it doesn’t mean others won’t like them

a rather bland piece of crime writing, with a ridiculous plot and unbelievable characters.. Reminded me of a very poor Missummer murder, mid afternoon tv programme. Far too many of tgese light weight crimes are published.

I struggled with my overall rating for The Brittany Murders. It's a cozy murder mystery by Anne Penketh, and I tend to hold cozy mysteries in a different category than other genres, as it is a specific style of writing in the sub-genre. It has the murder element, interpersonal issues, but also tends to be more lighthearted than other murder mysteries. Set in Brittany, largely following the interactions of an ex-pat British enclave, this book follows primarily the experiences of Jennifer and Pippa as they deal with their new lives in Brittany while trying to also figure out murders.

There were several areas that I would have liked to see more of the story line fleshed out. Jennifer's daughter's backstory is mentioned, and there's a sub plot for her but it's "resolved," and we don't hear about it again. There are also some major issues and tension between Jennifer and her husband Jonathan, that also feel unresolved at the end of the book. I know there will be other books in this series, so it will be interesting to see if those threads are picked up, or if the book picks up without addressing their issues.

The book also really shows the stereotypical British attitude to being somewhere else, which I thought was a good portrayal. They both live apart from and with one another, and struggle to assimilate with the locals. It's an interesting dynamic to have going on in the background of a murder-mystery. Overall, there's a lot going on in the book and it's an interesting new cozy mystery series. Also, I loved the cover of this book. It's one of the first things that made me look at the book to see what it was about, I really loved the cover design. I think it's a good first start to a series, and would pick up the next book to see where it goes.

Please be advised I received an Advance Readers Copy in exchange for an honest review through NetGalley.

I went into this book hoping for a cozy murder mystery to read by the fire on a cold winter day. However, the murder mystery was almost being camouflaged by everything else going on in the book. It felt like there were several overlapping but disjointed subplots (family, political, social, environmental, etc) that I didn’t have thoroughly worked out details regarding. The story also reads almost as a retelling after the fact (but not quite), i think writing it from a point of view where we were experiencing it with the characters and being brought along and shown rather than just told later would have helped me to connect to the underlying story and murder mystery plot a bit easier. This book had really strong potential but ultimately was not for me.

I received a free digital advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. Thank you to @netgalley and Joffe Books for the advanced copy and the opportunity to review this title.

Unfortunately the formatting is messed up so I’m just going to track this down eventually and read on my own.

Enjoyable First Outing..
The first outing in a new series, The Brittany Murder Mysteries, as the reader meets with Jennifer and family embarking on a new life in a small village - and hosting their first Christmas party for other expats in the area. When the local estate agent is discovered face down in the fish pond, inevitably chaos ensues. With local police dragging their feet, Jennifer and new acquaintance Pippa decide that some amateur sleuthing closer to home might just be in order. Enjoyable start to a new series with a well imagined setting, a deftly drawn cast and an entertaining storyline whilst providing much scope for further shenanigans.

2.5 stars

I really wanted to love this book but it was quite disjointed and there were a lot of subplots going on (including family, environmental and political drama). There are also a lot of characters to keep straight. The murders felt tacked on and I never experienced that moment in a mystery when you get the big reveal and it's a satisfying experience.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Joffe Books through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you, Joffe Books.

ps - the cover is STUNNING!!!!

This is an entertaining start of a new cozy series. I'm always a bit wary about books featuring expats as I'm one and the reality can be a bit more difficult.
That said I had fun and enjoyed the plot, I think that some more backstory about the characters would made the story easied to follow
A solid mystery that kept me reading
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I have been a fan of Anne's work for a while now. I have read and loved each and every book that she has written to date. When I heard that Anne was due to release a new book, I knew that I had to grab a copy at the earliest opportunity and read it just as soon as I could. Well ladies and gents the wait is over because Anne's new book is called 'The Brittany Murders' and it was released on 19th December 2023. It's a another corker of a read, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading but more about that in a bit.

'The Brittany Murders' is the first in a new cozy crime mystery series. As with all of Anne's books I was drawn into 'The Brittany Murders' from the very start. In fact as soon as I started reading, I knew that I wouldn't be doing much other than reading for the rest of the afternoon. I had difficulty in putting the book down. My Kindle wasn't exactly glued to my hand but it might as well have been because it travelled everywhere with me. I couldn't bear to miss a single second of the story. I had my own suspicions as to what was going to happen so of course I had to keep reading to see if I was anywhere near the truth or if I had wandered off in the opposite direction. The more of the book that I read, the more I wanted to read and the quicker the pages seemed to turn. All too quickly I reached the end of 'The Brittany Murders' and had to say goodbye to the different characters. I found 'The Brittany Murders' to be a gripping cosy mystery which certainly kept me guessing.

'The Brittany Murders' is superbly written but then I have come to expect nothing less from Anne Penketh. Anne has an easy going writing style that is easy to get used to and easy to get along with. Anne certainly knows how to grab the reader's attention and draw them into what proves to be one heck of a read and then some. Anne clearly cares about her characters and this shines through in the very vivid and realistic way in which she describes them. She makes her characters seem just as real as you and I. I love the wide variety of characters that Anne has included in the story - some are nice and easy to take to and others are the total opposite. I love the way in which Anne makes the reader feel as though they are part of the story and at the heart of the action. That's how I felt anyway. 'The Brittany Murders' has the perfect mix of sun, drama and humour and I loved it!

In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'The Brittany Murders' and I would definitely recommend the book to other readers. I hope to read much more of Anne's work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

first-in-series, new-series, Brittany, amateur-sleuth, local-gossip, local-law-enforcement, cozy mystery***

The cozy mystery is quite well done and the protagonists are excellent and fun. But the story as a whole seemed to tackle too many social and environmental ills at once. At least that's how it seemed to me. I think that the characters need to take more space and the ancillary dilemmas need thinning out. But. I'd love to see more in this series and watch it grow and improve.
I requested and received an EARC from Joffe Books via NetGalley. Thank you

An unappealing mystery set in a Breton village & its British ex-pat community. With many, mostly unresolved, sub-plots that get picked up and dropped constantly and three murders that are solved with so little catharsis that they still feel unsolved, this book is more an early draft than a finished novel. Don't waste your time reading it.

A rather disjointed story with no real effort to solve either of the mysteries mentioned here any one of which could have been developed to become one interesting mystery story. The character's felt very flat with infidelities and other issue's affecting children mentioned but then left. Not a good one for me 2.5 rounded up. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review

Unfortunately, I got one chapter into this book and couldn't get myself into it. I was confused with the characters being introduced in a very rapid fire way, and felt like I was missing out on information already, even though it was only a few pages. It left me questioning if there was something I had skipped, missed out on, or if I accidentally skipped ahead without realizing it. It was a very quick DNF for me.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author Anne Penketh for providing me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. This is a cozy mystery novel that is about a women named Jenneifer and her family relocating to a new place called Brittany for a fresh start at a new life. The real mystery starts after the family moved and during their first Christmas in the new town. It takes a dark as well as mysterious turn when local real estate agent is found dead, shocking everyone in the town. I really liked the authors writing and how she kept readers engaged along with keeping people on the edge of their seats guessing what will happen next. The Brittany Murders by Anne Penketh is a 4 star read that captivated my attention throughout the whole book addition to having great character developments.

Essentially a cosy mystery set amidst expat British families now living in France. Some try to integrate whilst others don't - old story. They form a pantomime group, bizarre to the French, during rehearsals of which one of them is murdered. An aside, that was a good move as far as I was concerned. Two of the group set out to find the murderer. There is far too little about police involvement (but typical of cosy mysteries) and too much about the gradual breakdown of some of the families for me. There are interesting bits - how Pippa is determined to become an artisan boulanger (succeeds). There's also a lot about the development of a windfarm nearby with the expected nimby versus green factions, more murders here. There is also quite a lot about the difficulties of settling into a different culture. Overall it seemed a rather bitty set of stories any one of which could have been fleshed out/developed to become one strong story. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.