Good start to an interesting new cozy mystery series. I enjoyed getting to know Willa and the other residents of the small town of Yarrow Glen. The mystery kept me intrigued and guessing whodunit. And there's CHEESE!!!
Looking forward to reading more books in this series

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. My thoughts and opinions are my own and without bias or favor or expectation.

What an amazing start to a very promising series! I loved the main character and fell in love with her life and the town itself. I can’t wait to read more in this series.

I never thought I needed a cozy set in a cheese shop, but now I cannot wait until Moss's next book is released. Willia is an interesting MC that I wasn't quite in line with the entire book, but she definitely won me over in the end.

3/5 Stars

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Paperbacks for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a good cozy mystery. There is a cheese shop. There is a pet fish. There is a compelling personal backstory (TM) we find out about over time. Again, there is so much cheese. I wanted to eat so much cheese while reading this. I'm originally from the Dairy State, I loved it. There is a lady who is starting a new business. She is making unlikely friends in a small town - her employees, the retired high school drama teacher and the young shop boy. They are all plucky. There are the fellow entrepreneurs-allies-suspects-potential romance. There is the sudden friendly next door neighbor. There is the detective, who is either scary or attractive or both. There is not listening to the scary-and/or-hot detective even when your life is threatened. There is the main character who continually forgets to eat real meals. There are truffle fries that, criminally, get cold. There is no explanation except possibly vague hand-waving about "Sonoma County wine tourism" to explain how what sounds like an incredibly small town can support all these fancy artisanal shops. There is a depressing lack of a bookstore mentioned. Maybe someone opening a bookstore can be part of the sequel. There is, again, so much cheese.

I am sure this review sounds sarcastic but no, this is exactly what I want out of a cozy mystery. Except for the lack of bookstore. This town needs a bookstore.

In short: Willa has opened up a cheese shop, Curds & Whey, in the small town of Yarrow Glen. It’s a fresh start for her & she’s determined to make it a success. A visit from a local food critic goes all wrong, & just when she thinks things can’t get worse she finds the critic’s dead body, stabbed with one of her shop’s cheese knives.

What I enjoyed:
🧀All the cheese!
🧀Well written mystery that slowly unfolded.
🧀Likable characters.

My thoughts: I loved this cozy mystery and think it’s going to be a great series! As with many 1st books in a series there is a strong focus on the characters and setting but this one was well balanced with the murder mystery with lots of cheese tidbits mixed in.

The mystery was well done with plenty of suspects, especially because the victim never gave a good review. Willa was a little too quick to criticize the official investigation, but I hope she will mature some as the series does.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, the fun characters and all the cheese facts.

Princess Fuzzypants here: Willa is excited about all the possibilities as she promotes her new cheese shop. She hosts a cheese making lesson for some of her fellow business owners. Things are going well until an acerbic food critic who delights in demolishing local restaurants in his reviews crashes the party. He is drunk and was supposed to be there hours earlier. He is rude and he is nasty and he intimates that he has a secret that he is going to tell.

A few hours later, Willa finds his corpse in his parked car. Naturally she and all those present at her event are suspect. In spite of the best attempts by the local detective investigating, Willa decides she needs to do some sleuthing. The problem is, she is not very good and when she discovers a second body, the prime suspect, she starts to get some very serious threats.

There are lots of revelations in the process of solving the murders. There is a little bit of potential romance and there are some interesting characters. I did enjoy learning more about various cheeses as well. Four purrs and one paw up.

I really enjoyed this! I think this is the kick-off to a pretty solid cozy series.
Shoutout to the author and NetGalley for providing me with an e-book copy in exchange for an honest review.

Willa Bauer has become a certified cheesemonger and opened up her very own cheese store, Curds and Whey, in the Sonoma valley town of Yarrow Glenn. While I'm actually not crazy about the setting, I think the community she interacts with makes up for it a bit.
I also like that there's a meadery there. I think that sounds interesting and it gave me a new thing to want to try out sometime!
We're introduced to a pretty solid cast of neighbors, employees, and fellow business owners in this tourist attracting town. I appreciate that she works pretty well and seamlessly with an older retired theater teacher, Mrs. Schultz, and their 19 year old assistant, Archie. I will admit Mrs. Schultz was a bit of a meh character to me, but she has her moments and I see room for her to become more interesting as the series progresses.
I also appreciate that Miss Willa here has a range of potential love interests, and I'm not quite sure which one she's going to end up with. I don't look for the romance aspect of cozies the way some do, but as long as the candidates aren't empty-headed simps doing everything for the MS, (*cough* Hannah Swensen *cough*) I don't mind it at all. I think it adds a layer of light hearted suspense when it's set up like this.

Now, since this is a cozy mystery... let's talk about the murder.
I won't tell you who winds up whacked, because I can't remember if it clues you into that on the book jacket or not. But, let's just say it follows the trope of making the victim someone you won't particularly miss.
I think the mystery was decently plotted and well paced, BUT...
the scene most of these have where the MC is in danger from the murderer in the penultimate chapter? Literally all that would do is create another horrendous crime scene and put you on death row for premeditated serial killing.
So, I docked a star largely because of this and the fact that I just wasn't as in love with the setting and characters as I am in others.

Other thoughts:
- I really enjoyed learning about so many different kinds of cheeses... both their histories as well as their flavors.
- I don't understand why there isn't a page or two at the back on how to pair cheeses and wines, or design a charcuterie board. We all love those little bonuses in a cozy, and it doesn't sound like it'd be difficult to add.
- Apricot Grille is kind of a dud name for a restaurant, but I see that issue in so many cozies. I'm probably just picky.
- I wouldn't complain if there were more dogs and cats involved in the stories later.

Overall, this was a page turner and I still really enjoyed the story. I'm looking forward to seeing what the author has in store for us with the rest of the series.

I love finding new cozy mystery series, and even better when it’s one that has lots of great characters, a solid mystery, and a town I want to come and visit.

Korina Moss shines in so many different areas of Cheddar Off Dead, the first being her diverse and well developed characters. Baz is Willa’s next door neighbor, and he becomes one of her sleuthing partners aka part of the Scooby gang. What I really enjoyed about Baz was that instead of being a love interest, he’s more of a brother figure to Willa. This is a nice change from the usual strong male leads in cozies.
I love that Moss has such an age range with Willa’s employee’s; Archie is a recent high school graduate and Mrs. Schulz is a retired school teacher.

And don’t get me started on the cheese descriptions and history! I love learning new things and being a Wisconsin native, I do love my cheese. There were a couple kinds that I have never heard of before and am excited to track down and try.

Finally, the mystery. There were lots of suspects and some false leads. I actually didn’t realize who the killer was until close to the end, which I always enjoy.

Cheddar Off Dead is a great first book in the Cheese Shop Mysteries, and I am looking forward to book two.

I really enjoyed this new cozy author's first book offering! I did make a point of reading a short cozy mystery she wrote that was in an anthology, and I really liked her writing in that, so I knew I'd enjoy this book. The characters grabbed me from the beginning, and I just loved how Willa and her three new friends sleuthed together. It was especially fun to read about her and Baz sleuthing together. He apparently reminded her of her brother. Baz was protective of her just like her brother would've been if he lived there.

I found the book hard to put down at times and just kept reading. To me it didn't seem to drag or go too slow. There were just the right amount of details and description, although I gotta admit I'm not really interested in the ins and outs of the cheese biz, but that was easy to skim through. I'm really invested in these characters though. They make me smile!

The showdown was an exciting one, and I didn't really know until Willa did whodunit. It's amazing how an inanimate object can help in a showdown, lol. I absolutely can't wait for the next book!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book provided by St. Martin's Paperbacks via NetGalley, and my opinions are my own.

Cheddar Off Dead Earns 4/5 Cheese Knives…Delicious Entertainment!

Even for one who is lactose intolerant, Korina Moss has penned a deliciously first-in-a-series cozy that had me entertained and agreeing with her cheesemonger Willa Bauer that “…most of life’s problems can be solved with cheese.” Willa owns Curds & Whey, a French-inspired cheese shop, in the heart of the Sonoma Valley. She’s hopeful a local food critic’s review will help “spread” the word and bring in lots of cheese-loving customers, but when he finally shows up late, drunk, and loud, and when he recognizes someone in the cheese class in session, he abruptly leaves. Later, Willa finds him dead by cheese knife…oh, this can’t be good. Suspects are a’plenty since the critic never provided positive reviews, so weeded through them is very engaging. Moss’s writing style was enjoyable with descriptive language, clever banter, and cheese as the big talk with informative insights and suggestions for serving. Willa, as a protagonist, was very much a novice, a bit rash and out of her depth, a bit too quick to criticize the official investigation, but hopefully, as the series matures, Moss will work to mature Willa’s actions and reactions in the next book.

Cheddar Off Dead is the first book in a small-town shopfront cozy series by Korina Moss. Released 29th March 2022 by Macmillan on their St. Martin's Press imprint, it's 304 pages and is available in mass market paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

This is a promising start to a comfortable easy-to-read small-town "shopfront" cozy with an appealingly intelligent 30something female protagonist who owns a cheese shop. When an irascibly evil tempered newspaper food critic is found with one of her shop's cheese knives in his neck right after threatening her with a bad review, she turns amateur sleuth to try to clear her name and uncover a murderer.

As with most cozies, the emphasis is on the characters and the puzzle. The crimes are described off-scene and without being gruesome. The language is clean and there's no on-page sexual content. The subplot threads are skillfully entwined into a satisfying climax and resolution. Although I do confess I figured out "whodunnit" before the end, I still enjoyed the read very much. I'm looking forward to the next installment in the series.

Four stars. Definitely one for shopfront cozy fans. It's full of esoteric cheese minutiae and I found a number of specialty cheeses I'm looking forward to trying.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Welcome to Yarrow Glen and the new Curds & Whey Cheese shop. Willa Bauer has opened the shop as a fresh start in the heart of the Sonoma Valley. She has always believed life’s problems can be solved with cheese. She can’t wait to share her mantra and her cheeses with all the residents of her new home.

Hoping to get the shop off to a good start she is looking forward to having a local food critic review the place. But then she learns this critic rarely gives a good review.

The man finally arrives late and clearly intoxicated right in the middle of a cheesemaking class Willa is having for her new neighbors and he is not happy with the people attending the class. After making some threats he leaves much to Willa’s dismay. He didn’t even taste any of the cheese. The class quickly wraps up and Willa is worried about the fate of her shop when he pens a horrible review.

Her worries get substantially worse when she finds the man dead. Stabbed with one of her new cheese knives. Cheese is not going to solve this problem. To save herself and her shop she is going to need to find the killer before the cheese really hits the fan.

Cheesemonger Willa Bauer took a roundabout path before opening her shop in Yarrow Glen. She grew up on a family farm in Oregon but left to travel the world learning about all types of cheese before opening Curds & Whey, so she is very knowledgeable about her product. She has hired two wonderful employees, Archie, a recent high school graduate, and Mrs. Schulz, a retired schoolteacher. We also meet her neighbor Baz who works around town as a handyman. All three are familiar with the town and what makes it tick. Mrs. Schultz was my favorite. “Very matter of fact, but also a little out there”. I loved the ideas she and Archie come up with to promote the shop. Ms. Moss gives us a nice introduction to these core characters while leaving plenty of room for growth.

The mystery was well written but with the small suspect pool, I did focus on one individual pretty quickly. Each clue just kept reinforcing my theory. I did enjoy the way Willa, Baz, Archie, and Mrs. Schultz banded together to try to catch the killer. The pace at which the mystery unfolded was a little slow for me but I can attribute that to being the first book in the series and the necessity to introduce all the characters and the settings.

This story is very similar to the Cheese Shop Mysteries written by Avery Aames so I did find myself comparing the two. Like Charlotte Bessette, Willa shares many tips and information about the production and flavors of many different types of cheeses. I am always looking for more cheesy recipes and hope that we are treated to more as this series continues. With the right development, Willa could become as impressive as Charlotte too.

Cheddar Off Dead is a good start for this series. To make me check into this series for the long haul I need Willa to have a little more depth and to pace herself and not jump so quickly to conclusions. I am a fan of some romance in my cozy mysteries but it felt like she was looking at every man in the book as a possible partner. I feel all the right elements have been laid out for a strong series, I look forward to seeing how the author builds on them in book two, Gone for Gouda.

As the first in a new cozy series, Cheddar Off Dead is off to a good start. There is a lot of setting up for the central characters, the location, the theme, etc. so I took that into consideration when there were some slow spots.
Willa has moved to town and opened a cheese shop called Curds and Whey after extensive traveling to learn about cheese. Things were off to a good start for the business until a food critic comes to her shop and then drops dead. She decides that the police are on the wrong track and she starts her own investigation. Typical cozy character action. The major characters of Willa, Archie and Mrs. Schultz and Baz show promise for future books in the series. As for the mystery itself, I enjoyed it and was diverted by a few twists and turns to the story. I guessed wrong as to the guilty party. I will set aside a spot for the next in the series to find out more about the backgrounds of the main characters and to learn more about cheese.
My thanks to the publisher St. Martin's Press and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is a fairly good start to a new cozy series. The setting was great and I loved the idea of a cheese shop. The writing was good but the main character didn't do it for me at all. In addition to not liking the main character I found quite a bit of the book to be unbelievable. While cozy mysteries often stretch the realm of what is conceivable for a character to actually accomplish this one went a little too far. Hopefully the next book in the series will be better!

Willa Bauer is cheesy. She loves cheese so much that she set up her own cheese shop in Sonoma Valley. Curds & Whey has only been open for a couple of weeks on the main street of tiny Yarrow Glen, but she’s determined to make it profitable. Willa grew up on a dairy farm in Oregon and sold her family’s cheeses on the weekends at the local farmer’s market. But it wasn’t until she spent time in France that she really fell in love with it and dreamed of opening her own shop. Now her shop is open, and she’s ready to share her love of cheese with anyone who will listen (and taste).

She is especially excited because she’s invited a local food critic to come to the store. She has a special tray of cheese picked out to share with him, so he can see how charming her store is and what she has to offer as a local cheesemonger, and the give her a good writeup in All Things Sonoma. But critic Guy Lippinger never shows up.

That evening, hoping to meet some of the others in town, Willa sets up a small cheesemaking class. While they’re making mozzarella, Willa gets a chance to learn more about Derrick, who runs the restaurant Apricot Grille, Birdie from the Smiling Goat goat farm Willa buys cheese from, Vivian from the Rise and Shine Bakery, and Roman from the Golden Glen Meadery. She even made up small gift baskets for each of them to take at the end of the class.

Everything is going well in the mozzarella class, each student making a shiny ball of the cheese and helping Willa feel more at home in the small town. But then they’re interrupted by a loud pounding on the door to the shop. Willa goes to see who it is, and it’s Guy Lippinger, hours late and smelling of alcohol. He looks around the shop a bit, rebuffing Willa’s attempts to get him to leave and come back during business hours. He criticizes everything he sees, clearly ready to write a scathing review, when he sees the others from her cheesemaking class.

They finally get Lippinger to leave the cheese shop, but not before he announces that one of them has a secret, and he knows what it is.

Hours later, after everyone has left and Willa has finished cleaning up the shop, she steps outside to take a stack of cardboard boxes to the recycling bin. She sees Guy’s car nearby, with him in the front seat. She walks over, planning on suggesting he not drive, that he call a car service instead. But when she opens the car door to talk to him, he falls out. With a knife in his neck. WIlla’s screams cause neighbors to call the police, and after she’s calmed down, she meets with the detective on the case. He asks her a lot of questions about herself and about the store, finally revealing that the murder weapon was one of the cheese knives she’d added to her gift baskets.

Willa is stunned. She certainly hadn’t killed the man. But there were only a few others in her shop who could have grabbed one of those cheese knives. Willa decides that she needs to figure out who killed Guy Lippinger before her reputation in town and her shop can’t recover. But will her investigation put her in the sights of the killer?

Cheddar Off Dead is the first in a new series about cheesemonger Willa Bauer and her shop in California. Author Korina Moss has created a small town and a small shop that is charming and entertaining, despite a small problem with murder. Willa is a lively character, and the cheese shop angle brings a lot of interest in between interrogations.

Be warned about this one though. It will make you really hungry. Before you start, you’ll want to visit your own cheese shop and set up a tray of deliciousness to snack on. Then keep a pen and paper handy (or your phone) to make notes on all the new cheese you want to sample, based on Willa’s descriptions. But once you get settled with your cheese board and beverage of choice, you will find yourself deep in a fun mystery with great characters and lots of spirit. I really loved Cheddar Off Dead, and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book in the series.

Egalleys for Cheddar Off Dead were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.

I’ll freely admit that I picked up Cheddar Off Dead by Korina Moss solely on the title. But then, finding out it’s the first in the Cheese Shop Mystery series and by a debut author, I was in book heaven.

Cheddar Off Dead is set in a small California town and follows Willa as she opens a cheese shop. As the story begins, Willa is anticipating a visit from a local critic that could be a great boon for a new store. But after a disastrous meeting, Willa finds the critic’s body and feels she’s the prime suspect in the murder. So, she decides to take matters into her own hands and starts investigating to clear her name.

I found Willa and the cast of characters to be quite likable. Willa is new in town, but she’s surrounded herself with two employees, a handyman neighbor, several other small business owners, and the handsome detective. Of course, most of them have secrets, and one of them is the murderer.

The mystery itself was pretty solid. There were enough twists and turns to keep me guessing, and the motive of the murderer was believable. So often, in first-in-a-series books, the mystery gets lost in the world-building, but there was a nice balance between the two.

I really enjoyed this debut novel by Korina Moss. With fun characters, a good mystery, lots of cheese facts tossed in, and I was hooked. I can’t wait to return to this small-town cheese shop to get to know Willa and her crew even better.

Cheddar Off Dead is the first in Korina Moss’s Cheese Shop mystery series. It was released yesterday (the 29th) by St. Martin’s Press. As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Let’s do the thing!

Cheddar Off Dead follows Willa Bauer, cheesemonger and owner of Yarrow Glen’s newest shop, Curds and Whey. A cheese shop. She’s new to town and inexperienced when it comes to putting down roots and making lasting friendships. It doesn’t help that a well-known (and severely disliked) critic is murdered outside her shop with a custom cheese knife she had planned to give out at an event. Not trusting the detective, Willa feels compelled to clear her name before any lasting damage can be done to her reputation. The problem? Her investigation means potentially alienating the handful of people she’s started bonding with, including the attractive mead maker across the street.

Let’s start with the plot. Instead of our heroine returning home after a bad breakup, she decides to start over in a new town. There’s still a bad breakup, but it’s unclear how recent it was. A lot of her past is unclear timeline-wise. Anyway, her newness doesn’t stop Willa from finding the best friend who encourages her shenanigans. There are two potential love interests. Future love triangles? Probably, but I doubt it’ll be the fun kind. Of course there’s an overprotective detective. Plenty of red herrings. I admit I didn’t catch onto the murderer until later, mostly because we don’t learn anything about them until pretty much everyone else is ruled out. I honestly felt a little cheated by that, but this isn’t the first cozy to do it that way. I’m just glad it wasn’t a random person who only got mentioned once. They’re there throughout the book, just not really expanded on until super late. So, standard cozy fare with a couple of little twists.

The pacing was off. The first third was beyond slow. Like, if I had been reading it for fun, I probably would’ve given up after three chapters. It was that slow. But it picked up after a while. I think when the cheese talk finally ran its course, everything smoothed out. Don’t get me wrong, I love learning about cheese, but when it’s not even interesting facts, it gets boring. But less is more. The first third of the novel was like cheese info dumps. Later on, there was still a bunch of cheese talk, but it was spread out in a way that felt natural.

Most of the characters were likeable. Willa occasionally annoyed me, but that’s just because she’s a busybody. That’s why most cozy mystery heroines annoy me. Otherwise, she was fine. I preferred Baz, Archie, and Mrs. Schultz. I would’ve loved to learn more about them. Detective Heath was a little flat, but he has potential. Same with Roman. Honestly, I can’t believe I’m saying this because I love cheese, but there could’ve been a bigger focus on character development and less on cheese.

The writing was fine. Like I said, the pacing was off and the characters were flat. But the actual words were fine. Nothing memorable. I finished it about a week ago and am already forgetting most of it. Ah well.

Ultimately, I was just meh about Cheddar Off Dead. If I come across the next book, I’ll pick it up to see if it’s any better, but I doubt I’ll actively look for it.

Overall, I gave it 3 out of 5 stars. Two and a half, really. If you’re super into cheese and enjoy average cozies, pick it up. But you’re not missing anything if you don’t.

At the beginning of a series, especially for cozy mysteries, there needs to be background provided, setting development and relationship building. And for the Cheese Shop Mystery series, Cheddar Off Dead incorporated all the essentials in an enjoyable storyline.

We’re introduced to newbie cheese shop owner, Willa who’s new to the town of Yarrow Glen and getting her stamp within the small community is her goal. She quickly makes deep friendships when her employees and neighbours and her colleagues are thrown into solving a mystery to get the police looking at possible suspects other than Willa.

The characters’ backgrounds I found intriguing, while potential romance (with the hint of a possible love triangle) made the story even more intriguing.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press for the arc. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is the series debut of the Cheese Shop Mysteries by Korina Moss. I really liked Willa. I found the characters genuine, caring or devious, as the case may be. There are plenty of twists and turns that provide many suspects.

I look forward to seeing if the bakery soon-to-be owner ever realizes how much sweat equity & dedication goes into establishing & maintaining a business. She had better get some business classes under her belt, grow up, and learn to put in the work or raise those prices to get someone to run the bakery.

Looking forward to the next installment. I was given an advance copy via Netgalley. These are my own opinions.

Cheddar Off Dead
By Korina Moss

After working in various cheese shops, Willa Bauer decides to open up her own cheese shop named Curds & Whey in Yarrow Glen in Sonoma Valley, California. But she’s not just starting a new business, she’s starting a new life after some heartbreak—romantic and otherwise. In the new town, she’s hoping to establish her business and make new friends. Everything gets a lot harder when the food critic turns up dead in his car just outside her store, with one of her custom knives as the murder weapon. Armed with her new friends, Willa does some sleuthing to try to figure out why the unpopular food critic was killed. Mark your calendars: this book is due out on March 29th, 2022.