Murder by Cheesecake: A Golden Girls Cozy Mystery
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Florida
Publisher : Hyperion Avenue (April 15, 2025)
Paperback Print length : 336 pages
ISBN-10 : 1368102980
ISBN-13 : 978-1368102988
Kindle ASIN : B0D843P1DK
The first novel in the all-new Golden Girls Cozy Mystery Series!
When Dorothy’s obnoxious date is found dead in a hotel freezer, it not only ruins a gorgeous cheesecake but threatens the elaborate St. Olaf–themed wedding Rose is hosting.
Things are heating up, and not just because of Blanche’s hot flashes. Rose’s cousin is eloping to Miami, and Rose is playing host. If she can’t balance the groom’s family’s snobbery against the traditional St. Olaf wedding week guidelines, her hometown may never accept her cousin again!
Dorothy quickly realizes she needs a date with whom she can exchange wedding-related wisecracks. Turning to a newfangled VHS dating service, she believes she’s found the ideal conversationalist. Unfortunately, what looks good on TV can actually be a total jerk in real life. It seems she’ll just have to enjoy the company of Sophia, Blanche, and whomever Blanche has targeted for a hookup.
As the Girls all pitch in, Rose is thrilled that the tea-and-fish-themed kickoff event is perfect, not a herring out of place. That is until Dorothy’s date is found dead—face-planted in an otherwise scrumptious-looking cheesecake. With every guest a suspect (especially Dorothy) and a marriage on the line, the four besties must ID the real killer, get the should-be-happy couple down the aisle, and make sure nobody from St. Olaf gets lost in the wilds of Miami. It’s up to the Golden Girls to sleuth out a way for friendship and love to win the day!
Dollycas’s Thoughts
Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia are the stars of this new cozy mystery series.
Rose finds out her cousin Nettie is getting married, but the venue in St. Olaf has burned to the ground. Nettie and her betrothed have decided to elope, but Rose has other plans. She will plan a perfect wedding in Miami with all the St. Olaf traditions. With help from Blanche, Dorothy, and Sophia, she should be able to pull off the week-long events. Blanche is more worried about what she will wear, while Dorothy is pulling out all the stops to come up with a date for the big event. She has decided to try a new VHS dating service.
While Rose tries to find enough herring necessary for all the traditional events, Dorothy goes on a date with a man she connected with on the video service. She soon learns he is not the man she thought he was and decides to attend the wedding with the girls and whoever Blanche brings.
When it is time for the first meeting of the families, Rose has big plans, including cheesecakes, but when she opens up the freezer door at the hotel, she finds much more than her favorite dessert. A dead man face down in one of the cheesecakes. The man just happens to be the man from Dorothy’s awful date. This is bad. Dorothy is the prime suspect, but anyone could have put the man in the deep freeze.
With the wedding coming up fast and all the traditional events that have to happen, the girls become amateur sleuths to catch the real killer, so by the end of the week, Nettie and her groom are hitched, and the killer is behind bars.
I am a huge Golden Girls fan and was so excited to read this book. Being based on a popular television show, readers can easily visualize the characters and hear the voices as they read their words. Their home, the living room, that front door, the kitchen, and the lanai are all firmly planted in our memories. The author had a huge task to capture the characters’ personalities, mannerisms, and actions. That being said, the first interactions felt forced, but they felt more true as the story continued. Blanche, the ever romantic, is set on a younger man, Dorothy, trying to find a man that isn’t Stanley, Sophia with her sharp barbs in every direction, and ditzy Rose brings her St. Olaf stories to life when her relatives come to Miami for the wedding she knows has to be just perfect.
All of that would have made a great episode, maybe a two-parter when you throw in the dead body, but for me, this story missed the cozy mystery mark. The St.Olaf traditions were fun at first, but soon they completely overtook the mystery in the story. Like the show, the book is set in the 1980s, and I loved all the references, Ovaltine, the fashions, and big hair. But every time the murder mystery came to the forefront, it was beaten back by herring, herring, and more herring, and I don’t mean red herrings that are popular in cozy mysteries. I didn’t give up and kept reading. The ending was exciting, the girls were brave and resourceful, but I had the guilty party pinned down early in the story.
Murder by Cheesecake is an entertaining read for fans of the series nostalgic to reconnect with the girls and their humor and sarcasm, but it is very light on mystery. Those who read cozy mysteries and enjoy following the protagonists and clues to solve the whodunit may be disappointed, like me.
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you to Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.
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About the Author
Rachel Ekstrom Courage is the author of the forthcoming novels Nothing Bad Happens Here and Murder by Cheesecake: A Golden Girls Cozy Mystery. A literary agent by day, she lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her husband (the children’s book author Nick Courage) and their dog, Chaely.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” “As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.” I am also an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.”