Wed, Read, and Dead, the third novel in the Mystery Bookshop series by V.M. Burns is a delightful read. As interesting as the mystery is, it is the characters that make me love this series so much and this book is no exception! The fact that the book includes poodles and a wedding are icing on a perfectly lovely cake. The regular characters are strong, fun, kind and witty from Samantha Washington to the college-girl sometimes helpers. Samantha is delighted, and a bit puzzled, that her extremely dependent mother has found a wonderful and wealthy man to play prince charming to her southern bell. Sam is more than willing to help with the wedding plans, but between a short deadline and the bride’s unrealistic and lavish expectation, the event is becoming a nightmare for the bookstore owner. When the groom’s sister-in-law “gifts” the happy couple with a wedding planner, the news should be greeted with delight, but they have all just met the woman and no one else thinks that she right for them. The bride so badly wants to make a good impression on the snobby sister-in-law that they all accept the nightmare to come, but they have no idea what a nightmare it will be. The murder of the planner is not a real surprise since it appears that they are not the only ones ready to strangle her, but until the murder is solved, the groom is suspect number one.
I was delighted to receive an ARC of the book via NetGalley mostly so I could read it early, but I also enjoy sharing my love of Ms. Burns books with my friends.
#NetGalley, #WedRead&Dead

We'd, Read, and Dead is an entertaining read. I like all of the characters, but Nana Jo is especially sarcastic, sassy, and a hoot. Sam"s mother is getting married in less than two weeks and a pushy in law has hired a snooty wedding planner who charges outrageous fees, but never pays anyone. She ends up being murdered and Sam races with her grandmother and her band of fun friends to solve the murder. Other suprises are added: getting the in law drink, the bride punching someone, and two vagabond children. The only aspect which I didn't care for was the inclusion of Sam's book she was writing, the story within the story. I found it distracting so I just skipped those parts because the main story was better.

A blast for anyone who likes mystery, romance, humor and a cast of intelligent characters. Plan the wedding, and find that killer with an ending that ties it all together
Thank you netgalley and the publish for this arc in exchange for an honest review

Wed, Read & Dead is the fourth installment in the Mystery Bookshop series set in North Harbor, MI and featuring widowed mystery bookstore owner, Samantha Washington. Sam has her hands full helping her mother, Grace plan her upcoming Christmas Eve nuptials to the wealthy, Harold Robertson.

Grace is starting to feel self conscious about meeting Harold's family and when she meets his brother Oscar and his snotty wife Margaret her worst thoughts are realized. Margaret looks down her nose at Grace and her family and to reinforce her feelings that Harold is scraping bottom brings in wedding planner Lydia Lighthouse to take over preparations. But, Lydia is a bully and immediately throws out all previous plans reducing Grace to tears.

It's not long before Lydia is discovered dead and the suspect list is long including Grace, Harold, Lydia's assistants and a host of others. Determined to find a killer so the wedding can go on as planned Sam teams up with Nana Jo and the Senior Sleuths along with her bookstore staff. The discovery of two orphaned foster children touches the entire group and draws everyone together during the holidays.

The author also includes a new mystery for the characters that Sam writes about in her novels. The latest episode in the Brits story line ties in with the wedding theme, a murder and includes a group of orphaned children.

A fast paced plot with well developed returning characters. It's nice to spend a Sunday afternoon with Sam, Nana Jo and the ladies from the senior villa. I don't really enjoy the British angle but do understand the relevance to the series, so I often end up just skipping over those parts.

I received an advanced copy of Wed, Read & Dead from NetGalley via Kensington Publishing. While not required to write a review I am more than happy to offer my honest opinion.

I love this series. The main character, Sam, runs a mystery bookstore as well as being a writer. Throughout the course of this book, we get scenes from the book she is writing. I love that we get two mysteries in one. The secondary characters are also fantastic and a lot of fun. The mystery kept me guessing.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Number four in the series does not disappoint!
The main character is also a writer, so there is a bonus in that there are two mysteries to solve within the book, which is a bonus and not a distraction from either story.
The regular cast of characters are so endearing and I love to read about them! I especially enjoy the senior citizens, who are written as smart, full of life and entertaining.
The mysteries are well written and kept me guessing!
I look forward to reading the next in the series.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

Wed,Read,&Dead is a great mystery with wonderful characters. There are twists and a bonus mystery within the story. I will definitely read more from this author.

This is a really fun cozy series that just keeps getting better. I love the book within a book, too! I love the family relationships, I love Nanna Jo and her friends.

I've purchased this series for my library, and it's circulating well! I recently added eBook copies, and they have a waiting list now, too. I'm sure I'll have readers waiting for book 4 when it comes out!

This story really hit home as my goddaughter just got engaged and will be planning a wedding. If she decides to go with a planner, hope it's not one like Lydia! Such a double story. Such well developed, lovable characters and a fast paced story that entertains until the end.

As this newest book begins on a funny scene of Sam trying on the worst bridesmaids dresses to make her mother happy for her upcoming wedding, you know it will involve some interesting predicaments that you can't wait to see how Sam tries to solve. Sam's mother is planning her wedding on short notice, throw in a social climbing relative who hijacks the planning with the intent of creating a huge event and you have conflict. This is the setup for the murder of the unpleasant wedding planner. But who had a reason to want her dead? In order to save her mother's fiance from jail, Sam and her Nana Jo set out to find out. I love Nana Jo's spirit and think she would make a fun grandmother. At first I found the concurrent scenes from the novel that Sam is writing to be distracting, but eventually I got into them as I realized that they mirrored the action in the "real" part of the book. I enjoyed the book greatly as the characters seem to be real people that you would meet in your town. This helps draw you into the book and keep your attention. The big reveal of the culprit was not given away early on, so that is also a plus. This is another author that is on my watch list.

Wed, Read & Dead (Mystery Bookshop Book 4 is the fourth book in V. M. Burns’ Mystery Bookshop series. This is an entertaining read with a great cast of characters and an interesting mystery. The smoothly paced storyline is well plotted, with laugh out loud moments, and lots of twists, clues, and red herrings to keep readers engaged and guessing. The well-developed characters are likable, diverse, and fun. The main character is writing a mystery book that is included within the storyline that provides a second mystery and clues that often help solve the main mystery.

Samantha “Sam” Washington is the owner of the Market Street Mysteries Bookstore in North Harbor, Michigan. After the death of her husband, Sam sold their home, purchased a building, quit her teaching job, and opened a mystery bookstore. Sam, an aspiring author who’s writing a British historical cozy mystery, lives in an apartment above the bookstore along with her two poodles, Oreo and Snickers, and is dating Frank Patterson, the proprietor of North Harbor Café. Her grandmother, Nana Jo, owns a home in Shady Acres Retirement Village. She has an older sister, Jenna, and her husband, Tony Rutherford, are both lawyers and have two sons, Christopher and Zaq, who help out in the bookstore. The garage has an upstairs studio apartment where Sam’s assistant, Dawson Alexander, who’s like a son to her lives. Christmas is three weeks away, and Sam’s mother, Grace, is marrying Harold Robertson on Christmas Eve.

When the wedding planner, Lydia Lighthouse, Harold’s sister-in-law, Margaret, hired as a wedding present is murdered, Grace is worried that her beloved fiancé will be arrested because he was upset and threatened her. Detective Bradley Pitt of the North Harbor Police Department isn’t very competent, and Nana Jo tells Sam that it’s up to them to track down the culprit. Sam’s feisty grandmother and her somewhat quirky friends from the retirement village where she lives (a/k/a Sleuthing Seniors) and Frank help Sam solve Lydia’s murder while Jillian Clark, who’s dating Dawson, and Emma Lee, who’s dating Zaq, take over the wedding planning. The group discovers Lydia cheated her clients and bullied and/or blackmailed vendors into reducing their rates. Meanwhile, Frank discovers two children hiding in his back storage area who ran away from an abusive foster home.

I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed it.

Wed, Read & Dead is Book 4 in the Mystery Book Shop Series by [author:V.M. Burns|16534140].
This was a great read! Sam is an incredible character and I was laughing out loud at some parts.

This book doesn't have just one mystery, but two! The characters are likeable and the story is so well written.

The characters Nana Jo, Dorothy, and others are so fun, I feel like I know them.

Highly recommend this mystery and this author.

I'm a fan of Ms Burns series and this book was a very good one.
I enjoyed it, had fun and sometime I laughed out loud at Nana Jo antics.
It's well written, entertaining and fast pace, one of those books you cannot put down once you start it.
The mystery was solid, full of twists and turns, and it was great even if it wasn't hard to guess the culprit.
It was great to meet again the cast of characters, as enjoyable and likable as usual.
The historical mystery part was a bit weak but I enjoyable and it never broke the flow of the main story.
i look forward to reading the next instalment in this series.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Kensington Books and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Oh what a brilliant read.
I laughed out loud at the antics, Nana Jo is sure fun and a loveable character.
What can I say about the wedding planner not a very nice person, I could tell who was going to be killed but not sure by whom .
Plenty of secrets coming out and so many suspects.
I love that Samantha is writing a historical novel set in England .
I couldn’t put this book down and needed to finish it.
Many thanks to Kensington books and Nettgalley for giving me the chance to read and review this book.

family-dynamics, friendship, mystery, murder, murder-investigation, situational-humor, verbal-humor *****

A cozy mystery set in the Midwest wraps itself around a prewar British cosy mystery being written by the main character who operates a bookstore. Samantha is a widow like her Nana Jo and they are tasked with gathering their friends to put a wedding for the mom in the three weeks before Christmas. Enter the in laws, a villainous wedding planner, a pair of orphans, and an inept small town policeman. The mystery novel she is writing rather mirrors the current goings on and helps Samantha see the clues and red herrings more clearly. Plenty of laughs, too! I loved it and stayed up to finish it!
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Kensington Books via NetGalley. Thank you for introducing me to a new author!

In this latest installment, Sam’ s mother is marrying Howard in three weeks time, and nothing is planned. Harold’s wretched sister in law gifts them the services of Lydia Lighthouse, nightmare wedding planner, who plans a huge garish wedding spending a million dollars of Harold’s money, while insulting Grace at the same time. Sam, Nana Jo, and Harold hate the woman, and she is killed after Harold has threatened to strangle her. Sam must solve the murder to keep her mothers heart from breaking and Harold out of jail.

Wed, Read & Dead by V.M. Burbs is the fourth book in her Mystery Bookshop series and was one of those books that grabbed my attention from the first chapter. I laughed so hard at Sam while envisioning her trying on bubble gum pink bridesmaid dresses for her mother's wedding.

I wish there was something new that I could say about Ms. Burns writing that I haven't said previously. It's so much fun to read two mystery stories within one book which Ms. Burns gives us in each book of this series. Her writing is captivating for me. I enjoy her characters and find each one to be friendly and likable. I would love to meet Nana Jo, Dorothy, Ruby Mae and Irma and spend time with them. The plot was tightly woven with just enough clues, twists and suspects that I was guessing almost to the end of the book who might have done it. I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with Wed, Read & Dead.

Samantha’s mother, Grace, is getting married on Christmas Eve and tis the season for murder! With three weeks to plan the wedding with the wealthy beau, there is a family get together to bring both families together and a gift from Grace’s future sister in law is the services of a wedding planner. Turns out the wedding planner isn’t seeing the same vision os Grace, but she’s more than ready to spend the groom’s money freely.

When the groom finally puts his foot down with the wedding planner after a furious confrontation, her body is found the next morning. Sam, Nana Jo, and the gang are raring to solve the murder before the wedding and there’s not much time left. 

This book was the best in the series so far. The family dynamics are captured well and I think everyone can relate to them. Also the next installment in the historical mystery series that Sam writes mirrors things to some extent and was a solid story within the story. It gives a great view of how a cozy author will bring some of the goings on in their own life into their writing and take some artistic liberty with it. ENJOYABLE on all fronts. A great twofer!

This is a delightful, fast-paced mystery that drew me in from the very first page. Mystery bookstore owner Samantha Washington's mother, Grace, is getting married to wealthy Harold Robertson and they have been gifted with the services of wedding planner Lydia Lighthouse by Harold's sister in law. When Lydia's autocratic ways and vast overspending leaves Grace in tears, Harold threatens her and, when Lydia is found murdered, Harold becomes the prime suspect. That brings Samantha, her Nana Jo and the rest of the Senior Sleuths on the case to solve the murder so that the wedding can go forward. The great thing about this series is that , in addition to owning a mystery bookstore, Sam is also a budding writer and the book contains chapters of her story taking place in a stately manor in 1930's England in which the plot mirrors what is going on in the main story. A very interesting idea! This book has a compelling plot, interesting and relatable characters, a wonderful sense of humor and a touch of romance. It's a winner!