Murder in Cherry Hills

Cozy Cat Caper Mystery, Book 1

By: Paige Sleuth

Narrated by: Marla Bradeen

Length: 2 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Kat Harper has only just returned to her small hometown of Cherry Hills, Washington when she discovers the dead body of her neighbor, Mrs. Tinsdale. Matilda, Mrs. Tinsdale's orphaned rescue cat, just might be the only eyewitness to the murder. But how do you convince a cat to reveal "whodunit"?

©2015 Marla Bradeen (P)2017 Marla Bradeen

Cute but slight

Kat Harper has moved home to Cherry Hills, Washington, and is settling in happily, until she finds her neighbor, Mrs. Tinsdale, murdered. The police detective who turns up to lead the investigation is childhood friend Andrew, who'll be investigating his first murder.

Except, of course, Kat has to investigate, too. Mrs. Tinsdale's cat, Matilda, with no one else to give her a home, moves in with her, and she gets involved with the rescue group Matty came from, and which Mrs. Tinsdale was treasurer for. This puts her in contact with all of the tiny number of people who could even conceivably had any motive to kill the friendly, kindly, older woman.

I like the characters. They're not very deep or complex, but they are likable. Kat also doesn't ignore all common sense and put herself in obvious and predictable danger, which is a plus. Yet it seemed a rather slight story, even for its short length. Enjoyable, but not something that will linger in your mind after you're done reading it.

In addition to that, Paige Sleuth a.k.a. Marla Bradeen reads the audiobook herself, which was perhaps not wise. She's not a bad reader, but she is merely reading aloud. She reminded me more than anything of me and my cousins reading to each other in bed at night, sharing a book in our shared bedroom. Warm memories, but there are better readers out there.

I bought this audiobook.

Performance not very good.

Narration isnt very good. Might be an inexperienced narrator based on numerous other performances I've heard from other narrators. Speeding up the narration helped a little.

For children under 12

The book read like a children's book, almost like Nancy Drew. Predictable and simple. Not much plot. Nosy girl sleuths with handsome detective. Three stars. Meh.

Very brief cozy mystery. SHORT

(As posted in Good reads)
It was okay. It was short and didn't have much to say – no suspense or thrills. I'm glad it was only a couple of hours.

Need a lot of work

I believe in Encouraging writers, But the only thing I can think of to say is that I would encourage this author and the narrator to find a community College for course work in narrative writing and speakinf/reading. The plot needs filling out, The characters need depth And the pace Needs to pick up. In addition, the narrator needs some training for this kind of work.

cute

cute story, narration very stilted. I would have given a better review if she hadn't sound like a robot

Better if read

Not to be mean, but this book would be better off read. I could not get into listening to this book as the voice was very dry and robotic like. It was hard for me to get into the story because of the mundaneness of the voice. I would have enjoyed the story more had I read it instead.

Awful!

The reader is terrible; choppy & with the inflections in all the wrong places. Story is sophomoric

Murder in Cherry Hills

Dumbest story. Marla Bearden needs to learn how to read. She's awful and her voices don't exist. I'm planning to avoid these books.

All around awful

This was terrible
Bad story
Horrible narrator
This should never have been released
Awful awful

Paws for thought?

A cosy whodunit. No violence. No sex. A good book to listen to on a quiet afternoon. Not overly taxing on the little grey cells. I liked it. A give me for cat lovers and whodunit fans.