Belinda Blake and the Snake in the Grass by Heather Day Gilbert is the first book in the NEW “Exotic Pet-Sitter” cozy mystery series. Publisher: Kensington Books, coming June 25, 2019.
When exotic pet-sitter Belinda Blake moves into a carriage house in tony Greenwich, Connecticut, she’s hoping to find some new clients. Instead she discovers a corpse in the garden—and a knack for solving murders . . .
Pet-sitter Belinda Blake doesn’t rattle easily, but move-in day has been eventful, to say the least. The python in her care tried to slither to freedom—just as she met Stone Carrington V, her landlords’ disarmingly handsome son. With the constrictor back in its cage, she heads out to the garden, only to discover a designer shoe poking out of the boxwood hedge—attached to a woman’s dead body.
The victim, Margo Fenton, was a Carrington family friend, and no one in their circle seems above suspicion. Between client trips to Manhattan and visits to her family in upstate New York, Belinda begins to put the pieces together. But though she’s falling for Stone’s numerous charms, Belinda wonders if she’s cozying up to a killer. And soon, daily contact with a deadly reptile might be the least dangerous part of her life . . .
Strong plot and tightly woven that delivered an all-around enticing mystery that I could not put down, quickly becoming a page-turner. Belinda has two jobs, a video game reviewer and is an exotic pet sitter. Finding the body on the grounds of her new home propels Belinda to seek out answers in this fast-paced and action-packed drama. Fueled by a quirky and eccentric cast of characters, Belinda’s interactions with Rasputin and murder, I was completely enthralled in what I was reading. The narrative was visually descriptive as I pictured each scene as a moving film with engaging dialogue.
The author did a great job in staging this whodunit with a plenty of suspects, some I didn’t know whether to trust or not, strategically placed twists and turns that added to my reading pleasure. I had an inkling of who was the murderer and it was fun to see how it all came to fruition with clues here and there for Belinda to decipher. And I love Belinda’s sense of humor, especially in some of the situations she finds herself up to her neck in. She cracks me up. I enjoyed the role that her family played in with their own individual knowledge that would eventually lead to the killer’s identity.
This was a fun read and I can’t wait to read the next book in this entertaining new series. Wolves. Gotta love it.
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FTC Full Disclosure – I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
This book does sound like a fun read ~
Sounds like a book I would like!