Shady Hollow by Juneau Black

I’ve been in a reading slump and I needed something different so I made it my mission to go to Barnes and Noble and pick up something based solely on the cover—it’s something I rarely do—so when I spotted this charming cover, I knew it had to come home with me. Keep reading to see why.

The first book in the Shady Hollow series, in which we are introduced to the village of Shady Hollow, a place where woodland creatures live together in harmony--until a curmudgeonly toad turns up dead and the local reporter has to solve the case.

Reporter Vera Vixen is a relative newcomer to Shady Hollow. The fox has a nose for news, so when she catches wind that the death might be a murder, she resolves to get to the bottom of the case, no matter where it leads. As she stirs up still waters, the fox exposes more than one mystery, and discovers that additional lives are in jeopardy.

Vera finds more to this town than she ever suspected. It seems someone in the Hollow will do anything to keep her from solving the murder, and soon it will take all of Vera's cunning and quickness to crack the case.

Series: Shady Hollow #1 | Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard | Genre: Cozy Mystery/Animal Fiction | Source: Purchased  | Rating:

This is definitely a different book and has to be the coziest of cozy mysteries. The characters are animals and they live in the most charming place. I could not put this book down.

Here’s what’s going on. When reporter Vera Vixen learns that the grouchy toad, Otto has died and a killer is among them, she decides to crack the case on her own. Not only will this make for an incredible story, it will help the town out seeing as the local police chief tends to prefer fishing to solving crimes. As her investigation kicks off, Vera is shocked when she discovers a creature with a potential tip has been murdered. Will she be able to crack the case or will the murderer target her next.

Oh my goodness, I had so much fun with this one. Everything about this book is magical and charming. The characters are so vivid and realistic that I forgot they were creatures until they made mention of a particular trait.

The mystery in this one is solid and there’s a lot of avenues they go down while investigating. It was fun to see how it played out even if it was slightly obvious.

This book made me fall in love with reading all over again. It was exactly what I needed when I needed it. I loved this one so much that I ordered the rest of the series while I was in the middle of this one.

Overall, this was the perfect cozy creature mystery. I highly recommend this series and hope there’s more to come from the writing team of Juneau Black.

Shady Hollow Mysteries

Shady Hollow

Cold Clay

Mirror Lake

Evergreen Chase (novella)