The second book in the Expectant Detective series. The ladies are now moms of 1yr olds and continue their amateur sleuthing during maternity leave when an environmentalist is murdered at a protest. Laugh out loud funny and so many relatable moments for me as a mom. I enjoyed the environment aspect and discussion around finding balance of sustainability in today's modern world. Highly recommend if you like mysteries!

I have been provided with a review copy of this title from NetGalley for an impartial review. This was just a great read. I just had so much fun reading this story.

Alice continues to stumble over bodies in this second book by Kat Ailes. Alice and her friends have had their babies are enjoying their maternity leave as well as any woman with no sleep and child attached to breast nonstop would, by getting a little involved in a bit of light protesting. When one of the protestors doesn’t make it through the night, solving the crime might just be what best friend and postpartum depressed Poppy might need. As ever Alice is unfailing awkward and her dog Helen a disaster, but between them and the rest of the crew, they will persevere! I only wish I’d had friends like these when my children were babies. A fun read for mums, dog lovers, and mystery solvers.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this DRC.
#DeadTired #NetGalley

I loved The Expectant Detectives, so I was thrilled to see there was a follow up by Kat Ailes. Once again, she did not disappoint! As a mother of two young children, a lot of one liners and quips certainly hit their mark. This was the perfect combination of humor and whodunnit!

Four youngish moms meet in prenatal class. They become fast friends and discover how they meet other's that are often Dead Tired. Instead of enjoying their maternity leave, they find themselves in unusual situations that often involve the local authorities. But these ladies love a good mystery as well as the rest of us and they are not afraid to ask questions.
I enjoyed the way Kat Ailes wrote Dead Tired with mystery and humor wrapped intricately around.

The second adventure of the Expectant Detectives; now it's a year on and the babies are toddlers, but the hilariously ill-assorted group of friends are thrown into another murder when they join a group protesting the clearing of a local meadow to build a wind farm. The witty, snarky humor of the preceding novel again features here and makes this 'cozy' a lot of fun to read. The characters make the novel, and although the perpetrator of the murder may not be difficult to guess, the unraveling of the mystery by the young mothers and their longsuffering cohorts entertains and amuses. Here are just a few of my favorite quotes from the book:
1. Raven was there, of course, and looking exactly as I expected a protestor to; tatty patchwork waistcoat over a faded black T-shirt, and jeans that had gone way past distressed and looked frankly distraught.
2. I loved Penton and had wholeheartedly embraced my new country lifestyle (well, maybe not wholeheartedly, more of a slightly awkward embrace where a handshake might have been more appropriate)
3. Jack was awake at 5:30, not out of any kind of excitement--he's one, his understanding of the concept of 'birthday' is nil--but just because he's a baby, and babies are knobs like that.
4. "And you brought your baby. How nice." I wasn't sure what to say to that, I'd had very little choice in the matter; short of popping Jack in a station locker I had very few options.
I recommend this one to readers who like their mysteries puzzling rather than dark, and their humor sarcastic and witty rather than broad. I found it delightful.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy. This was the second in a series. I enjoyed the first book, I feel this one fell a little short. The story was entertaining, but I felt like it was rather anticlimactic.

Dead Tired picks up about a year after the end of The Expectant Detectives with our protagonist, Alice, and her crew of other mothers intertwined in a new mystery. This time, it is two murders attached to a shadowy green energy firm and the Earth Force, a pro-environment protest group, who is trying to stop a wind farm from destroying a meadow.

I had mixed feelings about The Expectant Detectives as I felt it dragged until the last 50 pages. This book, however, feels a lot more tightly edited and better-paced. The two murders are spread across the story, so the tension builds and then builds again, but it is still firmly a cozy mystery that isn't going to ramp up your anxiety! Ailes has set the book up for additional entries in the series and with the improvements in this offering, I think I'll stick with it.

My only real complaint is that I just don't get Joe's framing in either book. Does Joe like/love Alice? Does Alice like/love Joe? I know this isn't a romance, so I'm not expecting a full accounting of their relationship, but the books have weird "I hate my significant other" vibes at times. I don't know if Ailes' painted herself into a corner in the first book with their rushed relationship, but I'd rather have nothing about their relationship mentioned than the bits and pieces we get in this book, especially.

* Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review! *

Dead Tired is the second in the Expectant Moms Detective Series. In this book, the babies are 1 year old and the Moms are still getting used to being Moms.
They join a group to protest bulldozing an ancient copse. They are chained to trees overnight. When it is light, a woman is discovered strangled across from Poppy.
Alice and her friends get involved in the case. They are a disparate group and unlikely friends but they manage to find out the truth.
An interesting series, an enjoyable mystery- sometimes you need a light cozy murder mystery and this book fits that niche.

This is different to other murder Stories. Here a a group ofwomen with Babies. And they still have the time to solve a complicated murder. Easy to read and entertaining.

Dead Tired is a cozy British mystery about a group of mom friends on maternity leave who solve small town murders (all with babies and misbehaved dogs in tow. )

Ailes captures the early days of motherhood with dry humor through the POV of Alice, a likable first-person narrator prone to landing in awkward situations. It comes as no surprise when she and her friends find themselves in the middle of yet another murder investigation. This time it involves an environmental activist group, a talented young photographer and a green energy company.

I enjoyed the antics of this unlikely group of crime-solving friends; I couldn’t help laughing as I remembered my own early days as a mom. The way Alice describes breastfeeding and infant birthday parties is SPOT ON.

This is the 2nd book in a series, and if I had a do-over, I would read book 1 first. It still works as a standalone, but there a number of references to book 1 that would have helped me better understand the characters and the dynamics of Alice’s friend group. I plan to go back and read book 1, and I hope we get another installment in this series!

My first thought is that this book was so much fun to read! I love cozy mysteries and this was one of the good ones. As a mother myself, I could completely relate to how tired the moms were, and I found myself jealous that I didn't have a group of friends like Alice's to solve mysteries with when my kids were little. The characters were great and very relatable, as mentioned, and the story was well written. The mystery took lots of twists and turns and had me guessing who the murderer was all the way to the end. I hadn't read the first book in the series when I started this one, but I was easily able to follow along with who was who and how they related to each other. I enjoyed Dead Tired so much, I'm definitely going to go back and read it now, though.

All in all, I enjoyed this book very much and highly recommend it.

5/5 stars.

*** I would like to thank NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Kat Ailes for the opportunity to read and review Dead Tired.

This was an amazing book. I highly recommend it to everyone. Great characters and a great plot. I will be looking for more books by this author. The book is superbly written. Lots of twists, turns and shocking turns of events. Quickly becoming a go to author for me!!!! If you love to read a book and be shocked by the ending then check out this author for sure. You will love this book and this author. Very enjoyable and I highly recommend this book Very funny and entertaining as well as a great mystery

3.75 Stars
This was a fun book! I read The Expectant Detectives and wasn't at all sure it would be my kind of book when starting, as I usually go for a little more of a serious tone in my murder mysteries. But I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it, so jumped at the chance to read Dead Tired.

The group of friends that met in their prenatal class are back, but the babies are all about one year old now. They still are all living in a small town a few hours away from London and several are still on their one year maternity leave (had no idea a YEAR was the norm in the UK!). Once again there is a murder and these Moms are right there when it happens. As they start digging into the crime, they are often bringing along their babies, with mostly comical fallouts. Thankfully the hilarious dogs are also included!

As a friend said after I told her about the first book, we can all use some comic relief! This book definitely provides this, and it is a recommended read. I don't think it is one that you should read as a standalone, though, so plan accordingly.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars

Dead Tired follows a group of young mothers in their second adventure after they solve a mystery while they are pregnant.

Part of the appeal of the first book was the hilarious outtakes on pregnancy. This time around they are all exhausted mothers of active toddlers and their struggles are no less humorous.

The women are both sleep-deprived and trying to feel normal while bogged down in a diaper and baby barf existence. They become involved with a local ecological protest group and it's not long before the first body turns up.

The mystery is fun, but the big draw is the mommy interactions. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Really enjoyed "Dead Tired" by Kat Ailes, the second in the Expectant Detectives series. Although I have not read book one in this cozy and charming series, there was good character development of Alice, her funny misbehaving dog Helen and friends and their toddlers. I enjoyed the activist plot, and the activist meetings, characters and squabbles felt realistic. Moral predicaments such as whether to eat at McDonald's were funny as well. The mystery was well-written and the scenery in the Cotswolds and London helped the book provide a nice escape. Looking forward to reading book one of this series as well. Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC.

Another good entry in The Expectant Detectives series of books. The new moms are caught up in more murder investigations and once again “help” investigate and solve the cases.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of Dead Tired in exchange for this review.

Dead Tired is number 2 in a series, which I didn’t realize when I started reading it. I would guess that having read the first in the series would have made the characters stand out from one another a bit more and would have been more enjoyable, but I liked this book even without that.

Alice is a new mother on maternity leave. She has three other new mom friends, and together they happen upon more murders than one might hope. They are not above snooping around looking for clues, considering suspects, and asking impolite questions, and they seem to get results.

In Dead Tired, three of the ladies join an environmental protest against woods being cut down for a wind farm. Everyone is chained to trees overnight, but when they wake up, the enigmatic Leila, the woman who invited them to the protest, has been strangled to death. There is more to Leila than meets the eye and motives and suspects abound.

The writing style is appealing and chatty, so this book felt easy and fun to get into at the end of long days. Kind of a Sophie Kinsella vibe, but with more dead bodies. Check it out!

I loved this book so much. The gang is back together investigating another murder. This book has all the same hilarious comedy of the first book. Watching Alice and her friends navigating motherhood also brought so many hilarious moments. The mystery of this one had many twists leaving you guessing who the murderer was.

Alice and Helen are back in Dead Tired the second book in the Expectant Detetives series. Alice and her mom friends may be short on sleep, but that doesn't stop them from getting wrapped up in another murder investigation. Life in a small English Village seems to be quite deadly. When a murder occurs at an eco protest where Alice is chained to a tree, her friends quickly drag her into investigating with them. In addition to trying to keep one year old Jack clean and Helen out of trouble, she is often cajoled into doing investigating with friends Alisa and Poppy.

I really like the character of Alice. She is smartly funny with endearing flaws. From hoping the dog will clean up the food the baby drops on the floor, to choosing a nap over cleaning for her son's birthday party, I found her very relatable. The group of women get themselves into some funny and sticky situations as they try to uncover a murderer.

This is a wonderful cozy mystery and I can't wait to read what Alice and her friends get up to next.

Thank you NetGalley and Minotaur for the opportunity to read in exchange for my honest review.