Spring has come to Busman’s Harbor and that means mud! Julia meets her sister Livvie’s employer, Zoey, when the pottery shop is found completely vandalized. An advocate for a summer pedestrian mall makes Zoey an outsider of the town curmudgeons, most notably her neighbor. Whom she argues with frequently. Said neighbor is found by Livvie and Zoey murdered in the pottery shop basement and Julia searches to discover who had it in for the man, believing Zoey is innocent.

This series is so much fun to read. The descriptions are so vivid that you feel like you’ve actually been transported to a coastal village in Maine. Each book can stand alone so you can jump right into the series without worrying about keeping up. A favorite series of mine!

I really loved this book in a new to my series and author. I can't wait to read the next one. The characters and location really add to the plot. This book keeps you guessing until the end

Julia Snowden lives in Busman's Harbor, Maine. She's nursing a broken heart and working for her family's clambake restaurant that is open in the summer months. When she sees flashing cop lights in front of Lupine Pottery she worries about her sister Lizzie. The store was vandalized and all the pottery was broken. Zoey was collecting clay on the Culvers property. She is also a big advocate for a pedestrian mall. Many of the townspeople are upset about the changes happening to the small town. When a body is found in the basement of the pottery shop. Lizzie asks Julia to help clear Zoey's name.

I really liked this book and enjoyed following the clues with Julia. I liked her relationship with the local police. I'm excited to see where her love interests are headed. I'm excited to find another author and cozy mystery series to follow.

In this tenth book of A Maine Clambake Mystery, there are some changes in Busman's Harbor. Julia and Chris have split up, Julia has been asked to vacate the apartment above the restaurant and she has returned home and is living in her childhood bedroom. Her sister is working in a pottery shop off season and the old mansion on Morrow Island is well on it's way with the renovations. Lupine Designs, the shop Livvie works is vandalized and the owner, Zoey Butterfield, is an advocate of a pedestrian mall that many are opposed to, including the owner of the business that shares her building. When he ends up dead in their shared basement, Zoey is the main suspect. Julia is sure that Zoey is innocent and sets out to prove her innocence and find out who the real culprit is.

Once again, Julia uses her skills to solve puzzles, follow clues, use friendships to gather information and work with the police to find answers. I liked the addition of Zoey to Busman's Harbor. She is a smart and talented businessman, but I also like that she is becoming Julia's friend, something she sorely needs. The first thing Julia needs to do is figure out the motive for the murder. Who would want to see the old man dead? With some connections to older residences, sheltered companies and properties that need to be beautified there are a lot of questions. As Julia begins to unravel all the twisty clues, we learn who the culprit is. With Julia in danger adding to the excitement of the showdown, I really enjoyed this story. There were twists, red herrings and a great plot that made this another excellent addition to the Maine Clambake Mystery series.

A nice and simple cozy mystery to read next to the fire! This is the 10th book in this series, but my first by the author.

I liked this one, nothing too crazy here, it is not predictable in the obvious sense but when you are like me and literally eat breathe and sleep mystery it follows a set of rules that lead you to the culprit.

Set in Maine with the main character Julia this is a cute, pretty quick read that I didn't put down once! Julia runs her families business and I bet I should have read the other 9 books because I was a bit lost throughout this one. Julia befriends Zoey who is the neighbor of the person who is found murdered in the basement she shared with the owner of the other business.

Zoey is in trouble, and Julia does everything she can to help her friend out!
It was a face paced read that was really fun! I would read the rest of the series first though 4/5

Thank you to netgalley for the ARC!

I really liked this one! I loved guessing who the murderer might be and seeing into Julia's personal life and thoughts.

I enjoyed this book. The pacing, characters and setting are wonderful. The story is interesting. I was definitely surprised by the twist at the end as to who the killer is. #MuddledThrough #NetGalley

I’ve read all the books in this series and really enjoy the characters and the setting. This had a major plot and a subplot that eventually tied together. It was very interesting in how it did get solved and how people’s backgrounds intertwined.

Another great book in this series. The Maine setting, very well plotted mysteries and great characters always keep me coming back to this series. This installment is set in spring and revolves around a pottery shop Julia’s sister works at. I enjoyed this book. It was fast paced & enjoyable and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next on the love front.

Another solid entry in this reliably entertaining cozy series. Tourist season arrives soon in Maine, so Julia Snowden is taking advantage the last gasps of free time before the opening of the Snowden family clambake business to investigate the murder and break-in at the upscale pottery stote where her sister works.Well developed and interesting characters people this fast paced mystery.

This is book 10 in the Maine Clambake mystery series. It's spring and mud season in Maine. A perfect time for potter Zoey to be digging clay. Julia sees police cars at Zoey's store and finds the shop and it's contents have been destroyed. Zoey is devastated and they think the vandal is against Zoey's idea of a pedestrian mall in town. Now her neighbor is found dead in the basement of the shop and Zoey has become the main suspect. Julia tries to find the murderer and with the twist and turns of the story eliminating many of the townspeople, they have to start looking at friends as the potential murderer. A good story.

It was such a pleasure returning to Busman’s Harbor, Maine in Barbara Ross’ newest book Muddled Through, the 10th book in the Maine Clambake Mystery series. My favorite place on earth is Maine, particularly the area Ms. Ross writes about in this series. I’ve read this series from the beginning and feel as if the characters are friends I get to visit in each book.

Julia Snowden arrives at the pottery shop her sister Livvie works at to see all the merchandise and stock completely destroyed. The shop is owned by Zoey Butterfield, a talented potter, but someone Julia has only met once or twice. Zoey is a strong proponent for the proposal to turn several blocks of Main Street into a pedestrian-only mall on summer weekends. But other shop keepers, including her next-door neighbor, are adamantly opposed. Tempers are raised at the local town hall meeting between the two sides. The next day, Julia is once again called to Zoey’s shop, only this time, there’s been a murder at Zoey’s shop.. Encouraged by Livvie to help clear her boss’s name, Julia steps in and starts asking questions.

A big reason I love this series is that the author brings the setting to life - I feel as if I’m there in my favorite place as I read the book. The characters are fully-fleshed out with strengths, weaknesses, triumphs and heartbreaks. I was so totally immersed in the story I couldn’t put it down, and even felt tears prick my eyes during several parts of the story. I look forward to the next in the series - it can’t come fast enough for me!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy. I’m happy to leave my thoughts and opinions on this book.

Yesterday, Kensington released the tenth book in Barbara Ross’s Maine Clambake mystery series, Muddled Through.
Evidently a reader thought up this title, as Barbara explained in the postscript, and it is an apt title given the season and state of main character Julia Snowden’s life.

I can’t tell you how much I look forward to reading the books in this series. When I start a book, I try to become aware of when I slide into the reading and reality recedes. Total failure—I’m immersed before I know it.

Barbara puts the reader into intriguing action from the very start, and then she hooks you in with each chapter. But the other aspect that hooks me is the historic and other details that Barbara must research to write. Part of it is teaching. I had no idea lupine flowers (see the cover) was pronounced loopin, not loo-pine (long “i”), which begs the question—why isn’t the spelling lupin, solving the problem. English!

Please welcome Barbara Ross to WWK. E. B. Davis

Fifty years ago, many small-town folk were wary of strangers, or in as they say in Busman’s Harbor, the setting of this series, those “From Away.” But now? We’re such a transient society and Busman’s Harbor has lots of outsiders who own summer cottages there. Would that mentality still exist?

It would. I live part of the year in Key West, Florida. The people who have the good fortune to be born in the Keys are “Conchs.” People who’ve moved to the Keys from other places but have lived there full-time for at least seven years are called “Freshwater Conchs.” The rest of us are just passing through.

Maine doesn’t even have the “freshwater” gradation. I love this joke, which Katherine Hall Page tells in the thirteenth book in her series, The Body in the Lighthouse.

“A Down East man and his pregnant wife are visiting in New Hampshire when she goes into labor. He bundles her into the car, and they drive as fast as they can to the Maine border, but it’s no good. The baby is born before they can cross it. The same day another baby is born somewhere on the Maine coast. As soon as he can travel, his parents take him to Asia, where he lives for the rest of his life. The other baby lives a long life, too, but he never leaves the state again. They die at the same time. The Ellsworth American runs both obituaries. “Local Man Dies in Singapore” and “Man from New Hampshire Dead at Eighty-one.”

After spring mud comes black fly season. Remind me why people love Maine so much. Don’t the ocean breezes keep the bugs away?

It’s true. Black flies don’t bother us on the coast. But in the woods…

If in twelve thousand years, not enough topsoil has developed to absorb rain and snow melt in Maine (leaving clay exposed for potters), how many years does it take to develop topsoil?

Twelve thousand years is the blink of an eye in the history of the earth. The main point about the topsoil is there’s not enough of it to absorb and drain a combination of snow melt and spring rains, hence “mud season.”

Now that Julia is living with her mother again, broken her relationship with Chris, and unable to continue operating their winter restaurant, she has too much time to think. She’s retrospective, thinking about the last ten years of her life. She’s down. Is this natural or is she depressed?

I don’t think she’s clinically depressed (whatever that might mean), but she’s pensive, betwixt and between, trying to make sense of her life and figure out what’s next.

What does animatronic mean and how does it apply to Busman’s Harbor?

Animatronic comes up in a heated town hearing. A local complains about the “Disneyfication” of their resort town and says the developers won’t stop until the citizens are all animatronic—like the moving statues in the Hall of Presidents at Disney World. It’s a fight about what to keep and what to let go of to accommodate the tourists on which the town depends.

Who were “rusticators?” What was the purpose?

Rusticators are the first wave of tourists who came to Maine in the late nineteenth century. They came specifically to get away from the growing cities and experience a simple life for a week or a summer. They came to Maine because it was rustic.

My husband might be a Mainer. What is that, and is it the same as being cheap or being a potential recycler?

Some people might say it has to do with being cheap, but it really has to do with keeping anything you might ever have a use for, no matter how unlikely. My husband may be one, too.

Are there a lot of New York City expats in Maine?

Oh, my goodness, yes. And since the pandemic, even more.

I would have thought the most popular vehicle in Maine to be four-wheel drive trucks, not Subarus. But are the Subarus four-wheel drive as well?

Subarus are all wheel drive and Maine is the second-best market for Subarus in the country. (Following only Vermont.) However, there are more Ford F150s here than Subarus. (I just had to look that up.) But Maine’s love affair with the Subaru is well-known and well documented.

What does the psychological term “well defended” mean?

The way it’s used in Muddled Through it means self-protective, not allowing oneself to be upset by events by pushing feelings away. It’s not a good thing in the long run because the person isn’t feeling their feelings, but it can be a crutch to get through a crisis in the short term.

Why does Busman’s Harbor have two main streets? Isn’t it confusing?

Busman’s Harbor only has one main street, called Main Street, but it curls around a hill and crosses itself, thereby creating the intersection of Main and Main. You can see a map of it here.

What is pine syrup/bitters? Does it taste like pine, just as yucky gin tastes like spruce trees?

It tastes like Christmas! Really, pine syrup and pine bitters are lovely.

The lobster stew sounds incredible. But even if you could grind up lobster shells so fine as to not cut up your stomach, are they even digestible? They were used to thicken the stew?

It’s lobster bisque that was traditionally thickened by ground up lobster shells—and I mean truly ground up to powder. Some chefs still make it that way.

What do Mainers call tonic (that stuff you add to yucky gin)?

I think you’re alluding to what other people call soda or pop. Old, true New Englanders (not just Mainers) call that tonic. It’s fading from the language rapidly. You hear soda much more often today. I guess they call tonic, tonic as well.

I thought pecan pie was a Southern thing. The recipe is titled Cardamom Pecan Pie, but with the substitution of maple syrup, maybe it should be called Maple Nut Pie. It really is a different pie, isn’t it?

Hmm. Substituting maple syrup for another sweetener is a common practice. I have a novella coming out next year where maple syrup gets substituted for brown sugar in Irish coffee. I don’t think that makes it a whole different thing, does it? I fully acknowledge that pecan pie is a southern thing.

National Geographic Magazine has only employed four female staff photographers in its history. True?

As of 2000, when the book Women Photographers at National Geographic was published it was true, and those four were widely spaced in time. Further it says, “Until the 1970s (and some might say beyond) the National Geographic Society was the publishing equivalent of a private men’s club. Women worked at the society, but nearly always as secretaries or clerks. Men and women ate in separate dining rooms.” Nonetheless from 1907 onward, a small number of intrepid women, almost always submitting over the transom in the early days, or later working as free-lancers, did get their photographs published in the magazine. Some of their achievements are extraordinary.

Is it terrible to want to preserve memories of someone by avoiding the present-day real person?

Such an interesting question. But yes, I think in particular with a romantic partner, when the relationship is firmly in the past, it can be better to remember than to deal with current reality. Sometimes with former friends as well. Like when you rediscover them through Facebook and they’ve turned into jerks.

Why would forensic psychologists think that having someone in your family murdered gives anyone in the family more propensity to kill?

Because violence begets violence and someone raised in violent circumstances is more likely to be violent. It doesn’t apply in the situation in Muddled Through, though. In this case the psychologist, who hasn’t met the person in question, is generalizing and is wrong.

Is it a journalist’s job to make the populace feel safe by portraying murder victims as living unwisely, making them responsible for their own murders? Sounds like blaming the victim and casting aspersions to me.

I don’t think it’s a journalism thing. I think it’s a human-being thing. We look at the victims of anything horrible, manmade or natural, and we think, “I’m a different person in different circumstances, so that won’t happen to me.” It’s a defense mechanism. If we thought about all the terrible things that can happen all the time we’d never make it through the day.

With that, with the murder cited in the newspaper articles in Muddled Through, there is a degree of victim-blaming, particularly when the stories instigated by “leaks” from the defense counsel.

Maine lupines are actually from the West Coast?

Yes. The lupines we love to see in meadows and by the side of the road in June are invasive. We do have one native type of lupine, but it’s been wiped out by the visitors and taken a particular type of butterfly with it. We do love the lupines, though. They are beautiful.

Pottery must be a lot like writing. It teaches you failure. Right?

After interviewing potters for this book, I came away feeling like there was a difference. Both activities are about creating art, but potters face uncontrollable failure all the time from the beginning of their practice to the end. With writing it’s about trying to get close to an ideal and failing. With potters it’s about things literally blowing up in the kiln.

A character in the book tells Julia she needs to learn to fail in regard to her relationship with Chris. I’m not so sure that’s correct. Perhaps in the short term. But is it more that Julia has learned where she needs to draw the line, and appreciate that lesson, for long-term success? She’s already done that in her working relationship with Sonny.

You’re right about Julia’s decision of course. But I think when a loving relationship founders, we’re all susceptible to feeling like we’ve failed. Julia’s inexperienced at love. Her relationship with Chris is the first romantic partnership in her life that’s lasted more than weeks. Their relationship went on for a long time and was intense. They lived together and worked together. Julia imagined a future together, and I think it’s that imaginary future that she’s actually mourning.

What’s next for Julia?

After Muddled Through, we pick Julia up in “Perked Up,’ a novella in Irish Coffee Murder which will be published on January 31, 2023. The eleventh Maine Clambake Mystery is due to my publisher three days from now. (Gulp.) That will be out summer of 2023.

Thanks so much for asking! Your questions always make me think.

Julia Snowden broke up with her boyfriend Chris, and now, she’s lost her apartment because her landlord says he needs it for a relative. Julia’s back home, in her teenage bedroom, and wondering what’s next. She’s always busy during tourist season since she manages the family business, Snowden Family Clambakes. It’s the rest of the year that’s lacking.

In a “watch what you wish for” situation, Julia’s caught up in mayhem and murder. Her sister works at Lupine Design as a potter. The store sells vases, dinnerware, and artwork. Someone has taken offense. A break-in reveals every piece of pottery and ceramics smashed to pieces.

Zoey, Lupine’s owner, is in favor of turning four blocks of Main Street into a pedestrian mall on weekend nights to accommodate tourists and reduce parking problems. Store owners and residents are strongly in favor or strongly opposed. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground.

Are feelings running high enough to include murder? Zoey is a likely suspect since she knew the victim and they were often at odds. Mainers are notorious for hating change, but would someone go as far as murder over blocking off streets? It appears so.

This is book ten in the series. Julia has been in a holding pattern since her breakup and living with her mother brings her situation into clear focus. The trouble is, she’s not sure what she wants. Her sister, married right out of school and a mom, found she loves being a potter. Is there change in her future? There’s the hint of a nice twist at the end which means I’m really looking forward to book eleven.

Recipes are shared at the back of the book—refrigerator soup for non-cooks, butterscotch cookies, lobster stew, cardamom pecan pie, mushroom soup, and Pine Tree State of Mind cocktail with a notation of where to buy two of the less common ingredients.

There are plenty of changes in this 10th book in the Maine Clambake mystery series. Julia Snowden had broken up with her boyfriend Chris and she is forced to move back with her mother when landlord Gus evicts her from her rental. It's early spring (aka mud season) and local businesses in Busman's Harbor are getting ready for another tourist season. One morning, Julia finds the police at Lupine Design where her sister Livvie works as a potter. Fortunately, Livvie is safe but the beautiful distinctive pottery pieces in the shop are destroyed. Store owner Zoey Butterfield does not know who would vandalize her store but she is a vocal supporter of the plan to convert Main Street into a pedestrian mall on summer weekends. Other shop owners, including her next-door neighbor Phinney, are vehemently opposed. When Phinney is found murdered in their shared basement, Zoey becomes the prime suspect. Livvie asks for Julia's help to prove Zoey's innocence.

This was a solid entry in this long-running series, and the identity and motive of the killer was a surprise. I received a digital ARC from Netgalley and Kensington. My opinions are my own.

Barbara Ross takes small town Maine feuds over a sidewalk proposal and business proposals to a new height in Muddled Through. A proponent of the sidewalk development has her store trashed and an opponent ends up murdered. Whodunit? A good cozy about lack of neighborly feeling.

Princess Fuzzypants here: It is off season for The Snowden Family Clambake and Julia is all muddled up. Still reeling from her break up with Chris that included closing down the winter restaurant they ran together. Her landlord has turfed her too and she is now back in her childhood bedroom wondering what happened to her life. Her sister Livvie asks her help when Livvie’s winter boss potter Zoey’s studio is trashed. They have just finished cleaning up the mess from the vandalism when a far more serious mess occurs. The man with whom Zoey has had a long and rancorous relationship is found murdered in her basement. Zoey is immediately suspected but both Livvie and Julia think she is innocent. But Julia is certain Zoey is not being forthcoming.

It takes a lot of sleuthing to uncover the information that results in Zoey opening up about her very sad past. The problem is, as each new cornel of information comes out, it makes Zoey look more and more guilty. It is only once Julia, approaches it from a different angle that the truth emerges. It truly is a well constructed and intense mystery. It is one that could cost both Julia and Zoey their lives. But that is the easy part. The hard part, from the hints in the story, will be where Julia will go in her romantic relationships in the future. I will stay tuned to see if it goes where I think it might. Five purrs and two paws up.

Julia Snowden is now running her family’s clambake business and living with her mother in Busman's Harbor, Maine. During the muddy off-season her sister Livvie works at Lupine Design as a potter. Julia rushes to Lupine Design when she sees several police cars parked in front. She's relieved to see Livvie is fine but shaken. It seems the shop was vandalized over night and Libby found the mess when she arrived at work that morning.

Julia helps the police locate the owner Zoey Butterfield, but she has no idea who would do this.

The cranky owner of the shop next door is found dead in their shared basement the next day. The police suspect Zoey killed him for vandalizing her shop.

Julia knows Zoey is innocent and is determined to prove it.

Good characters and a good story make a nice read. Hope to read more in this series.

Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Jeanie
I enjoyed meeting Julia, her family, and her friends in Busman’s Harbor, Maine. There is something special about Mainers that invites the reader, even those From Away, into their towns and lives. I appreciate the sense of community the folks have despite their differences and how one usually knows where they stand with each other.

Julia has been recovering from breaking up with Chris, the man she lived with after returning to Maine. She manages the Snowden Family Clambake during tourist season. Her sister Livvie and brother-in-law Sonny oversee all the cooking for the Clambake and their mother manages the gift shop. They hope to have major renovations finished before the new season begins.

Julia doesn’t have an off-season job, so she currently lives with her widowed mother. Her sister Livvie is a talented potter who works for Zoey at Lupine Designs during the off season. They design and make upscale ceramics of all kinds to sell in their storefront, online, or by special order. Julia was leaving her mother’s one morning and saw police cars outside Lupine Designs. Frightened for Livvie, she hurried over to learn that when her sister arrived to open the store, every piece of ceramic in the storefront was shattered with cabinets and shelves overturned. Zoey, who lives in the upstairs apartment, had gone out to dig for local clay for some of her needs. Childhood friend and police officer Jamie drove Lily to where Zoey was digging where there was no cell phone reception.

Julia, Zoey, and many townspeople attended a public hearing that evening regarding a new plan for summer tourist traffic to the local shops. Zoey is a proponent of the pedestrian mall, but some of the older, long-term townspeople are against it. Phinney, the older man who has a small storefront in the same building as Zoey, is loudly opposed to it. He and his friends are against any kind of change, especially if Zoey is for it. Since Zoey moved into the building and did major renovations for her business, they have battled every little thing, almost every single day, for more than three years. They had a nasty disagreement that night at the hearing, resulting in the discussion being tabled and the hearing being shut down.

The next morning, a distressed Livvie called Julia, who literally ran to find emergency vehicles around the shop again. The medical examiner was there, and she had just called in the state ME. Due to the circumstances, she could only pronounce the person inside dead and leave the rest for the state police. Livvie and Zoey found Phinney in their shared basement, brutally murdered. Just as with the vandalism the day before, there was no evidence of someone breaking into either shop. With Zoey being the only person there overnight, and after their public blowup, she is the main suspect.

Julia has helped the state police solve murders in the past, and Livvie wants her to do so again. Reluctantly, she gave the matter thought, even though she knows Sergeant Flynn and Lieutenant Binder will investigate the murder thoroughly. They discovered that when Zoey was a teenager, she went home one day and found her mother dead, murdered in a very similar fashion. The man convicted and imprisoned is still incarcerated, so Flynn and Binder took a much closer look at Zoey.

I enjoyed this wonderful cast of characters, some more eccentric than others. Many could step out of the pages into real life, so well are they described. I think it is fun to have Julia and her mother, neither one of them into food preparation of any kind, with principal roles in the family business. My favorite characters are Julia, Zoey, and Alice, an octogenarian known by most people in the area but new to Julia. I was fascinated to learn about Alice’s photography career and Zoey’s pottery studio and shop.
Plot twists kept me guessing throughout. I enjoyed watching the friendship between Julia and Zoey grow even through their disagreements. There is just the right balance of humor and high tension. I enjoy novels set in Maine as they often show ruggedly beautiful scenery and share interesting history; I found that and much more in this novel. The author crafted a mystery that held my attention, and I was fully engaged with the characters and murder. I was startled, yet saddened, to see who the killer really was. The end was perfect and left no loose ends. I highly recommend this intriguing cozy mystery!