I’m a fan a cozy puns but even for me the main characters name was too much. I also wasn’t invested in either of the men she was deciding between. I did enjoy the narrator.

I love a good cosy mystery, but this one has problems.

The MC is named Marci Beaucoup and she owns a French bakery in Paris, Kentucky. She loves everything French but we have no idea why.

She spends the majority of the book making bad decision after bad decision. Her internal monologues are *so long*.

She literally gets kidnapped, thrown in the trunk of a car, escapes, runs into a clothing store and buys a dress.

There’s also a love triangle between a local police officer and a man who is actually from France.

The character of her aunt has real potential but I think in order for this series to improve, Marci needs some work.

I received this book for free from netgalley for an honest review.

I truly riveting cozy with a wonderful setting and amazingly quirky characters. The cat was a nice catch and very charming throughout the entire book.

2/5 ⭐️
I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either. It just fell flat for me. The beginning seemed rush and I didn’t care about the characters enough to be all “oh I wonder how she’ll solve this”

I got really excited about this quirky cozy mystery but I lost interest very quickly. The murder, the heroine, the setting, the side characters are all very fun. The romantic sub-plot(s)? Just awful. The heroine's characterization is all over the place because her dynamic with her high school boyfriend makes no sense. There's no big change at the beginning of the book. I thought it might be the second or third in a series, actually. There's no reason for a change in the heroine's life or perspective, beyond the change in ownership of her building which develops over the course of the book. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

I could see this becoming a cute series in this small town. It has a good foundation for it.
However, I did not like the main character, she was quite grating. I also fully expected at least one more chapter at the end because it felt too easy. I knew who the killer was the whole time and there was no mystery. It was just cozy.

Rose Betancourt’s Macarons Can Be Murder is as sweet of a cozy mystery as its title. In it, we find bakery owner Marci Beaucoup, lover of her small-town life in Paris, Kentucky.

One day, Marci has two suitors come into her shop and flirt, while one also fights with another patron, a woman who is found dead in front of her shop the next morning.

Now, Marci leases her shop space, and she does not want her landlady to sell her shop to anyone wanting to end her lease, so Marci does all that she can to help clear the name of the more desirable buyer.

Along the way, Marci finds herself in the worst sorts of shenanigans and in absolute peril, but she never gives up. Will she clear the buyer’s name in time? Or will time be up for Marci and/or her bakery? Pick up this fun read to find out!


Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape media for this audio ARC!!

Thank you Dreamscape Publishing, NetGalley, and most importantly Rose Betancourt for this debut cozy mystery Macarons Can Be Murder. It takes place in the small town of Paris, Kentucky where Marci Beaucoups has her bakery filled with all kinds of delicious French pastries. When a young woman is murdered outside of her shop and the potential new owner of her building is the number one suspect Marci decides she will have to find the killer. She has plenty of help from her aunt and other assorted friends whom she has known since she was a child. If you love Joanna Fluke and Diana Mott Davidson, then you’re going to love Rose Betancourt.

Great way to start a new series. I cannot wait to see where this goes and to future books. I could fall in love with Paris.

I have read books from another series from this author and decided to give this one a try. It had a good mystery and I liked the characters. Marci got herself into some situations that she should have thought better through but fortunately she had help in the right places. I also liked her pets and the food ideas she had. Look forward to the next one,.

I was very happy to receive this ARC as I really enjoy cozy mysteries. However, from the beginning Marci Beaucoup’s main topic to the bitter end seemed to be romance with just the briefest passage about the murder. Also, there many references to magical cookies and casting love spells. I was expecting something altogether different while listening to this book as it was a mixed bag of genre.

However, Macarons Can Be Murder would possibly be a good young adult book.

A cozy mystery about Marci and her Patisseise in Paris Kentucky.Marci finds a body outside her shop which treated to close her store.
She sets out to find the murderer.
Some drama, twists romance.
Voluntarily reviewed.
Narration was okay the voice didn't seem to match characters.

The description of Macarons Can Be Murder was so promising that I think my expectations were too high. This book probably comes in at about 2.7.
Marci, the main character, has a cheesy name. She is indecisive and acts rather dumb. She falls firmly into the too stupid to live category of main character. Time after time she put herself into dangerous situations simply because she had issues with the town detective, Maverick, and didn’t want to talk to the police.
The narrator for the audiobook was good, if a little dramatic.
I read and listen to a great many cozy mysteries. I am often on the look out for a new series to get enthusiastic about; this won’t be one I recommend.
Thanks to Netgalley, Crooked Lane Books and Dreamscape Media for the review copies.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of this audiobook. The audiobooks for this was okay, the narrators sounded like an 80 year old lady verses a young adult. That made it extremely hard to picture this book’s character. Also the ending was very rushed I had to go back a few chapters to see if I missed it somehow.

I received a copy of this audio book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the opportunity.

Macarons can be Murder by Rose Betancourt is a cozy mystery with an excellent narrator, Nan McNamara. The characters' interactions are well written. The main character, Marci Beaucoup,searches for the killer after she finds the body on the sidewalk in front of her bakery.

This is not great literature, but it is a good beach read. I enjoyed it, and will likely read the next in the series when it comes out.

This has all the elements of a great cozy mystery: lovable pets, small town dynamics, and entrepreneur main character with supportive side-kick. I really wanted to love it!

Unfortunately, it just didn’t hit for me. Marci’s obsession with all things French and her aunts military personality both felt forced. It made it even harder to connect with Marci that her inner dialogue was so scattered, indecisive, and repetitive, affecting both the progression of the mystery plot and her relationships with the two men in her love triangle. I didn’t actually get the feeling either of the men were even interested in her.

While I probably won’t continue reading if this becomes a series, I was interested enough in who the killer was to finish the story.

Let’s do a quick emoji breakdown of the things that I liked about this book, and the things that didn’t quite work for me:

Why I liked this book:
🏠 The small town setting of Paris, Kentucky
🥐 The yummy descriptions of the baked goods
🐈‍⬛ The cute pets! Fifi the dog and Pepe le Pew the cat
🔎 The mystery aspect and following the breadcrumbs
🎙 Nan McNamara’s narration and her French and southern accents

Things that didn’t quite work for me:
♻️ The repetitiveness — I can’t even count how many times Marci said she felt like someone was watching her!
🕵️‍♀️ The obvious murderer — I understand that with books like these, it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out who the killer is. But in this case, I found it to be way too obvious! The entire book, I thought we were being led to a red herring, but it actually turned out to be the murderer.
🔺 The love triangle

Ultimately, I liked this book and all the coziness that it brought, but I wouldn’t say that it’s my favorite cozy mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. This was a cute cozy mystery set in a bakery. I seem to love these food based cozy mysteries.
There was a lot of extra stuff in this one so I’m curious to see how the rest of the series will be.
I enjoyed the narrator and her southern tone.
Cute and fun book.

Decent start to a new cozy mystery series. I liked the town and bakery setting. However, I didn’t enjoy the main character’s dialogue with herself. She needed someone to share the solving of the crime with besides doing the majority of it in her own head. The love interests seemed way too convenient. I know cozy mysteries can be fluffy, but this one had too much fluff for me and not enough substance. Hopefully the author will build on that for the next book in the series. 2.5 stars.

Honestly, I did not care for the book or the audio adaptation. Compared to other food/bakery themed cozy mysteries, this just did not hold up. I was not a fan of the behavior of the female protagonist and the overdone accent of the narrator just made things plain silly.