by Sarah Erwin & Jeannette de Beauvoir

This week we have a review of the tenth book in Jeannette de Beauvoir’s Sidney Reiley Mystery series, along with a fun guest post from Jeannette about cozy weddings. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of the book and a link to purchase the book from Amazon.

The Honeymoon Homicides by Jeannette de Beauvoir
Review by Sarah Erwin

The Honeymoon Homicides by Jeannette de Beauvoir is the 10th book in the Provincetown mystery series featuring Sydney Riley, part owner of a Provincetown hotel. The book jumps right into the mystery when a dead body drops from the upper floor of the hotel right into the middle of Sydney’s wedding reception to her new husband Ali. Many guests run screaming from the scene, but not Sydney, who is also known as Provincetown’s own Miss Marple.

Sydney can only snoop for a little bit because she and Ali are due to leave for their honeymoon. The pair has been gifted a week in a historical shack in the dunes of Cape Cod’s National Seashore. There is no internet, cell service or air conditioning, and hence, no way for Sydney to investigate. The details of this area and history of the shacks are fascinating and make the setting come to life. (Side note: be sure to read the author’s note at the end – it includes so many interesting details that added to my reading experience.) On walks through the dunes during their honeymoon week, Sydney and Ali meet a loner named Cyril who lives permanently on the dunes, as well as Park Ranger O’Connell.

Once back from their trip, Ali is called away on undercover police work, leaving Sydney the time and opportunity to investigate the body from her wedding reception. She uncovers many clues and even spends time with the victim’s widow to learn more. The more she learns the more she begins to suspect that the victim had (possibly illegal) business on the dunes, and her new connections from her honeymoon might know more than they are letting on.

What follows is a fast-paced mystery with such a suspenseful end! The book addresses themes of conservation and the environment pitted against themes of greed and development. I couldn’t figure out how Jeannette was going to tie the honeymoon back to the victim in the opening of the mystery, but she did skillfully. I flew through the last chapters of the book, not stopping until I knew the ending. An excellent entry into the series.

Sarah Erwin started her career as a children’s librarian, later becoming a public library director and now she’s a stay at home mom. While her career might have changed, her love of reading has been a constant since 4th grade and she reads over 200 books a year. Read along with her on her blog Sarah Can’t Stop Reading or on Instagram. Sarah lives in St. Louis, MO with her two kids, her husband and a family dog and cat.

The Coziest Wedding
By Jeannette de Beauvoir

One of the characteristics of cozy mystery stories is that they juxtapose light and dark in interesting ways. On the dark side, there’s usually a murder, and murders invariably have dark energy behind them—greed, avarice, hatred, jealousy, revenge. On the lighter side, protagonists are often amateurs who are either very nice, very funny, or both, people who bring fresh and sometimes inept eyes to the situations they encounter.

I was thinking about that when I began my Sydney Riley mystery series. There was a lot to juggle: I wanted every book to reveal something unexpected about the culture and history of Provincetown, which is where they all take place; I wanted to present readers with an interesting and challenging plot; and I wanted characters who might bring a little light relief to the story.

The beginning of a series is always a challenge because you’re making decisions that will have a lot of repercussions down the line—anything you choose now, you’ll be stuck with! So I gave a lot of thought to what I could give Sydney by way of a job, and landed on wedding planner. That served several purposes: it gave her a flexible schedule (it’s hard to solve murders when you’re working nine-to-five!), it presented her with the opportunity to meet and interact with a broad range of people, and it might provide a little light relief as she dealt with all the personalities and problems that come with weddings.

I know them well: Provincetown is a wedding destination, and I’m licensed to perform weddings, which has become pretty much my “summer gig.” Couples have always come here for the beauty of the area, and after Massachusetts led the nation in marriage equality in 2004, it became an even bigger destination, now including same-sex couples eager to tie the knot. Most of our weddings are low-key affairs on the beach at sunset or at the little-known almost-hidden garden in town, but I could imagine Sydney working for one of the town’s larger inns and figuring her way through some of the odd requests and difficult personalities that sometimes come our way.

Jeannette performing a wedding

She met her boyfriend, Ali, in the first book in the series, Death of a Bear, and throughout the subsequent eight novels they worked out precisely what relationship they could have that balanced her work, his work (he’s part of Homeland Security’s human-trafficking division), her mother (not a small consideration), his sister (a police commissioner), their friends, and the quirks and drama of Provincetown… so that finally now, in the 10th volume, The Honeymoon Homicides, they finally have tied the knot themselves. Sydney and Ali are married!

Of course, it being Sydney, not everything goes to plan, and there’s a murder between the ceremony and the reception. On the premises. In fact, the victim is the most literal of wedding crashers, as he falls through an awning onto the patio where they just said, “I do.”

It’s a terrible event, of course, especially for the victim, but you’ll have noticed how I said, “it being Sydney”? There’s that balance again, between the dark of this death and the amusement inherent in assuming that if there’s a murder anywhere in town, Sydney is going to be in the thick of it… the word-equivalent, perhaps, of an eyeroll. That balance is one of the strengths of this book and of this series, I think, and perhaps of cozy mysteries in general.

We’ve all probably read police procedurals that leave us exhausted, depleted, sad, feeling that the darkness has truly won, that the world is a bleak place. Certainly, it’s easy to feel that way if we keep our attention too much on the news. But cozy mysteries offer some respite from that darkness: they give us loveable, quirky characters in unlikely situations who bring humanity, humor, and humility to life’s most difficult moments, and allow us, at the end of the day, to see that the good can outweigh the bad in the world.

And that feels pretty cozy, doesn’t it?

You can click here to purchase this book from Amazon.

To enter to win a copy of The Honeymoon Homicides (winner can choose either print or ebook), simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “homicide” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen June 29, 2024. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win, it will be deleted after the contest. BE SURE TO STATE IF YOU WANT PRINT OR EBOOK. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

Jeannette de Beauvoir is an award-winning author of historical and mystery fiction and of poetry, whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Her Provincetown mystery series is now on its 10th book, and she’s a member of the Authors Guild, the Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Historical Novels Society. She’s also a local theatre critic and hosts an arts-related program on WOMR, a Pacifica Radio affiliate. She lives and works in a seaside cottage on Cape Cod.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.