I enjoyed this character-driven story. The main characters are well-written and work together well. I thought it was a bit long-winded, it was about two-thirds of the way through the book before you learn about the possible crime that might be the reason for the earlier murder. But once Alice is forced to investigate she proves extremely capable, and has a tight-knit group of friends supporting her, with all the specialist skills between them that are required to make their sleuthing successful.

On the other hand, by expanding the story so that the reader gets to know all the characters sets up a series of books perfectly, and I would look forward to reading them.

recipes, cozy-crime, golden-age-mysteries, amateur-sleuth, pet-dog, England, local-law-enforcement, investigation, murder, not-TTS-enabled, Christmas-season, dognappers, class-consciousness, wealthy, situational-humor, sly-humor****

Alice Beeton runs the Good Household Management Agency which provides domestic staff to the wealthy and seems to be a distant relative the renowned author Mrs Beeton. A woman presents herself for employment and is shortly sent to a very respectable home. Yet she is murdered there and we are introduced to Detective Rigby of the Met. Now the fun begins as the investigations cross each other, the plot keeps twisting, and recipes pop up just anywhere. Good fun, but I can see where it would be impossible to make it TTS enabled unless the recipes were gathered at the end.
I requested and received a free temporary EARC from HQ via NetGalley. Thank you!
Pub Date Oct 24, 2024 #MissBeetonsMurderAgency #NetGalley

I had thought that I would enjoy this cosy crime mystery, however on this occasion I made the wrong choice. The book is a disappointment, it is very long winded and overly descriptive of mundane situations. The main character Alice Beeton seems to. be one of life’s put- upon people, exploited and bled dry financially by her feckless brother, and her natural good nature taken advantage of by others. I wanted to give her a shake on several occasions.
Allegedly descended from the original Mrs Beeton, famed in days gone by for her housekeeping book, and referred to frequently by Alice, as if it were her Bible, gives the excuse to insert many recipes into the text, though in the e-reader version, they are formatted as to be completely incomprehensible. This pads the book out unnecessarily.
I’m not sure why this fashion for including recipes within the narrative of a novel has become so popular, but this is the third such novel I’ve read in the last six months. I’m not a fan, as I’m never likely to try to cook/ bake these dishes.
The actual murder, and the immediate aftermath, when Alice goes to investigate, complete with dog Agatha, is ridiculous. No murder investigation team in the country would allow the dog, followed by Alice, right through the house and up several staircases, into the room where the murder victim lay. It is too silly and far fetched.
Having read to 30% this book will be a DNF for this reader.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

Alice Beeton, distant relative of that Mrs Beeton, runs the Good Housekeeping Management Agency providing high class domestic staff to high class customers. One of her top clients calls in urgent need of a new housekeeper near. Christmas. Alice sends off a fairly new recruit. Only trouble is Enya is found dead at the property on New Years Day. The police do t seem to be getting anywhere so Alice decides to give them a hand. And she’s good at it! And I loved it. I hope it’s the first of many

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. Loved this book loved all the characters and the storyline, would highly recommend to other readers.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Definitely a book set up for a sequel or series. As any cozy mysteries like this go, it's glorifying readers who want to be in peace. Rather expectant interactions yet charming.

On the whole I enjoyed this book, with just a couple of reservations.

Miss Alice Beeton runs the Good Household Management Agency with her best friend Jinx, who she has known since boarding school, they run a very discreet agency placing staff when needed.

A few days before Christmas Alice is contacted by a personal assistant desperate to get a housekeeper in time for the Christmas period for a wealthy family consisting of art gallery owner father, chairty supporting mother and the archetypal goth daughter. Coincidentally at the same time, she is interviewing a lady called Enya Fischer who would be just perfect for the job.

All goes well until Alice receives a phone call on New Year's Eve stating that Enya has been found dead.

Definitely a cozy crime, a little wordy and drawn out in parts, also random recipes (Aice is a relative of the original Mrs Beeton) that aren't formatted properly at all and took ages to get past on the kindle, literally a word or two a page.

I would probably read another one just to give it a chance.

Loved this book. I own a Mrs Beetins cook book and loved this link! A well written story which I throughly enjoyed!

A cosy crime read.
Alice runs a household agency providing staff to well to do households, when one of her new staff Enya is found murdered. So Alice decides to investigate what happened to Enya by pretending to be a housekeeper in the house Enya was murdered.
Alice and her friends grow on you and are some good characters, but it did take a while to get into the story.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC and I give my honest review.

This is just a perfect, cosy mystery for christmas time (it’s definitely one I will be gifting to a couple of mystery lovers I know in their stockings)

Its slow and steady - which i really felt suited the whole tone of this read but definitely don’t go into this if you're wanting action packed, fast paced page turner. To me, the pacing and the atmosphere is perfectly curated to create a story that wraps you up.

The characters all felt nuanced and developed - such a rarity at the moment. Even smaller side characters felt ‘real’ and I loved seeing all the different friendship dynamics unfold. I’m not sure if further books are planned featuring Miss Beeton but I could absolutely see there being some follow up books and this becoming a series as there’s so much potential here!

In terms of the recipe inclusions - I have noticed this becoming a bit of a trend in cosy-themed books recently and honestly I don’t get it? When am I ever going to dig out a mystery book for a recipe? I end up entirely skipping over them as they add absolutely nothing but distraction. I’m desperately hoping this fad of randomly inserting recipes in novel dies off soon.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an E-ARC

I love finding a new author especially when the book is so enjoyable from the beginning. A cosy mystery type book in the style of Miss Marple I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next. I just loved Alice and Agatha and the bother they seemed to find themselves in unwittingly. I really hope there is some more in this great series. The only thing I would say is the recipes need a bit of an edit as they were impossible to read. Other than that a brilliant book.

Overall, I enjoyed it! A cosy mystery, a hint of romance, Agatha!, friendship, and quite an adventure for Alice Beeton of the Good Household Management Agency. It was hard to get into it for the first eighty-six pages because nothing was really happening in relation to the main storyline. Clearly, something suspicious was going on with the new housekeeper and her new employers, but then the reader is veered away from the mystery to Alice’s family dinner that only distracts from the main events. Jasper’s character was extremely obnoxious and how had he been running Hawthorne for decades? Had it always been Alice? I felt bad for her for having to put up with him.
Recipes - I could see what the author was doing but I didn’t really read them as they too distracted from the plot. There were a few scenes where it felt like they were written solely to include a recipe.
Gerda’s character - that revelation felt a little too surreal, but in the end I was glad she was who she said she was.
Also, look out for the typos like
P259: Thérèse addresses Alice as Alice, not Caroline.
P333: Alice thinks about how she left the detective a voice note for him to come over to Hawthorn, but on p331 she told him to come to Hawthorn in person.
Thank you, HQ and Netgalley for this arc!

Oh, how I loved this book! A first class cosy mystery where our leading lady Miss Alice Beeton and her cluster of lovable friends can’t help but involve themselves in trying to solve a murderous crime that happens a little too close to home. Alice must go undercover into the world of an affluent family who may not be all they appear to be.
The plot kept me very immersed in the book, it was very intriguing and definitely a page turner. We have strong women, friendship and found family, not to mention a handsome detective and a very special dog called Agatha!

I absolutely adored Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency! I am a huge cosy crime fan, and Josie Lloyd has managed to hit all the spots I look for from this genre. I loved the waves of nostalgia that are weaved within the plot and characters, and how Josue manages to be original and memorable.

This will be the perfect title to get cosy with this autumn and winter.

My thanks to Netgalley for the ARC, all opinions are my own.
A bit of a mixed bag here. I like a cosy mystery, and the writing was decent enough, certainly better than a good share of the contemporary efforts. But I hate lack of logic in a mystery, I mean, that's kind of the whole point, so in this one I found it rather irritating that Miss Beeton, who is allegedly rigid in her checking of references and details, fails to do so at two major plot points (in fairness, her first dereliction is the one that draws her into the whole murder thing). I'm prepared to suspend a certain amount of belief, but that pushed the boundaries.
That said, it is a cosy mystery, after all, and the interaction between the characters was well done, and the prose flowed quite nicely. The overall trope of the agency owner being distantly related to the original Mrs. Beeton was good, and Miss Beeton's use of her staffing agency to unmask the perpetrators was clever, and something that could almost be replicated in real life, so points for that.
However, and I'm a keen baker, I found the inclusion of recipes unnecessary. A crime novel is not the place for them, and I think it will narrow the readership. But I'm sure people can skip over them, as I did. And possibly the story is a tad overwritten, and could have benefitted from a decent edit, but - not to depress the author or anything - sometimes readers will tolerate this because the story is something light to relax with, and judgement is parked, with all the other trials of life, outside the book covers.
Miss Beeton is a teensy bit of a square, a bit out of touch for someone living in present-day London, but her friends make up for it, and I'm quite interested to see how/if she gets it on with her potential love-interest, so obviously the characters (a major part of any mystery) are reasonably well-drawn; the murderer, I'm sorry to say, was very obvious, even for a reader like me, who refuses to do any detective work, and leaves it all to the protagonist. Overall, though, a good cosy read for when the days get shorter, and the weather miserable.

Alice Beeton runs a household management recruitment agency, providing the best staff to the most exclusive households. When a new member of staff arrives for an interview, she charms everyone and is rapidly slotted into a wealthy family where she seems to fit perfectly, right up until she is murdered. Alice is determined to work out what happened to her and with her extensive network of friends to help, she starts investigating.

I liked the premise of this, a middle-aged, childless woman who is also a talented cook, with a delightful dog, who could easily be over-looked but actually has a full life and many friends who are able to help. For me it lacked spark, there were several things which just didn't work for me in plot terms and it was a little too slow paced to be able to overlook them properly. It's not a genre I usually go for, and perhaps that's why it didn't work for me.

Like an Agatha Christie but funnier. Alice runs an employment agency specialising in staff for big houses. Then there’s a disaster: one newly appointed girl is murdered. Alice is determined to solve the crime. A fun read with twists and strange coincidences helping to solve the crime.

I really enjoyed this from Josie Lloyd and do hope it will be part of a series. I was sad not to be able to see the recipes as would have enjoyed that! Recommend this and would happily read more! Many thanks

It’s probably fair to start with some clarity over what the reader can expect from this ‘cosy crime’ novel. Cosy crime seems to be one of those genres that suddenly are the focus of lots of attention in reviews and online discussions. Whilst there are some definitions that share common features it’s also a genre where there appears to be considerable scope for flexibility and individuality. So, for readers looking for a quirky approach to crime fiction, with a bunch of characters who might appear to exist principally to provide some scaffolding for the developing plot, and a requirement on the part of the reader for a quite tolerant approach to a plot that from time to time tests the boundaries of credulity, Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency could be just up their street..
Don’t get me wrong, though, in its own terms the book entertains, teases and puzzles the reader, generally in a good way, and is unlikely to lead to sleepless nights. Frustratingly, for this reader at least though, there was a definite sense of a better novel being within the gift of the author if it hadn’t been decided to aim for the popular ‘cosy crime’ category.
Despite these minor reservations, it is likely that readers attracted to the genre will find it an entirely satisfying read.

A fabulous start to a new series!

Alice Beeton runs a domestic agency, supplying 'staff' to those who, even in the present day, have need of help in the home. When one of her clients demands a housekeeper immediately, it is fortuitous that the ideal candidate is sitting opposite Alice, being interviewed about her suitability to join the agency. Speedily following up on her references, Enya is placed immediately - the fastest the agency has ever seen. Then, in the early hours of New Year's Day, Enya is found dead in the client's home, much to the distress of Alice. She meets with Detective Rigby, investigating the death but when she approaches him again, she finds the case is out of his hands and has been 'kicked upstairs' - so there's nothing else for it; Alice will need to invesigate herself!

This is a superb beginning of a series I look forward to following; whilst Alice is single with no family, she dotes on Agatha Christie - the little dog who accompanies her everywhere. With a fine cast of characters, there is lot going on in this one, and I relished all the details. A thoroughly enjoyable cosy mystery, and easily meriting 4.5*.

My thanks to the publisher for my copy via NetGalley; this is - as always - my honest, original and unbiased review.