As a huge fan of the series, of course I had to read this one and it was fun for all the nostalgia of the show. You can tell the author also loves the show as the details from what the girls wore to the lanai to Rose’s crazy St.Olaf stories, she gives the series the respect it deserves within the pages.
When Roses niece and nephew in law to be arrive in Miami for their wedding, Rose has to plan a St. Olaf style wedding with all the traditions that the families will expect when they come to town. The other ladies get on board to help. But things get off to a rough start when at the Welcome Tuna Teatime Dorothy finds a dead body in the walkin freezer and she is the main suspect because the body happens to be a man she went on a date with recently after being set up by a dating service and JT didn’t go well. The girls have to clear Dorothy and get the wedding to go off without a hitch in time amd not have any of the St. Olaf people know what’s going on behind the scenes.
I wasn’t sure if the sitcom ladies would work with the cozy mystery genre, but it did. The girls fell into the amateur detective roles easily and it wasn’t too over the top, except for all of Rose’s crazy wedding traditions.
Thanks to Hyperion Avenue Digital and NetGalley for this eArc in exchange for my review.

Overall it wasn’t for me sadly. It felt so disconnected from the golden girls to where it was a little bit distracting which makes me sad as a fan of the golden girls and cozy mysteries. I think it’s worth a try for golden girls fans but I personally didn’t love it

Murder by Cheesecake has some significant room for improvement. In my read, it seems like author Rachel Ekstrom Courage relied on the nostalgia of Golden Girls fans to do most of the heavy lifting engaging reading. The action of the novel, the discovery of a body in a freezer full of Rose's cheesecake, takes a backseat to the ladies planning a traditional St. Olaf wedding for Rose's niece.

I know I'm being too picky here, but it also seems like this Rose had never actually stepped foot in Minnesota. On the show, Rose's Scandinavian Midwestern storytelling was goofy and overblown for comedic effect; in this novel, it's repetitive and cliche.

If this becomes a series, I think there is a lot of promise, but I will probably wait to pick up a sequel until I read the reviews.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for an Advanced Reader Copy - pub date 4/15/2025. Golden Girls is more than a show to many of us; it is a flashback to cozy blankets and chocolate milk and comforting snuggles. At lesat it is for me. I grew up with this pillar of American television and my very own Nana was (and still is) a dead-on Rose Nylund in looks and personality. By turns reassuring and hilarious and challenging and rebellious, the show and its four heroines always give you some kind of closure and, 98 times out of 100, it is very satisfying. So you can bet I was excited to get my hands on this cozy mystery featuring the Girls solving a crime. When I saw the cover, the excitement just went up further. You seriously could not get a more perfect design.

Then you open the book and get a baffling but hilarious mixture of a dead man in a freezer and a St Olaf themed wedding. Yes, there are goat horns and, for those of you who are coulorphobic, there is a clown. A stripper clown. In a gay bar. Which is pretty much on brand, really.

The book itself very nearly got there but, when you think about it, a lot of new series take a book to find their stride. I feel that's what happened here. The author knows the girls as well as you and I, writes their banter well, and does her best not to play favorites. She nails all of the local color - the fashion, the vibes, the decor. She also grabs the opportunity for ridiculousness in the St Olaf wedding traditions and the guests and goes absolutely HAM.

The weak spot are little things that I feel the series will smooth out as it goes on. Things like getting TOO far into the weeds with describing every outfit or getting a LITTLE too mean to each other. Edges to be sanded as the series grows. I also hope that will be true with the plot and pacing. It is a fast read and funny but the murder and the wedding are not well-balanced and you spend an awful lot of time with herring instead of Dorothy's plight with the terribly stereotypical cops. The ending comes at you fast, too, like a cow on roller skates going down-hill. Wham, you've fallen off your log into the resolution.

Like I said, nothing necessarily bad especially when you consider what one usually expects out of a cozy but it leaves room for improvement. Still the concept gives such warm fuzzies and the nostalgia kick is very very real so I'm on board to try the next one. Plus... there is a cheesecake recipe in the back and the book club packet offered as a download has bookmarks, an author interview, and drink recipes. Oh, and a "Which Girl are you?" quiz.

... Yes, I'm Rose and, before you make fun, go on and blow it out your tubenburbles.

A murder mystery with the Golden Girls
I grew up watching them in tv and I could visualize the girls doing their antics and trying to solve the murder
I enjoyed it and would like to read any future golden girl novels in the series when available

Such a cute and fun read. I am not truly a big enough golden girls fan for this book, but overall as a cozy mystery it was still enjoyable. I didn’t realize it was the actual golden girl characters and not just golden girl vibes when I started this book. Cozy mystery is maybe a stretch during some parts of book. The whole wedding ordeal sometimes became more important than the murder. But maybe with more background of the characters, I would be more invested also in the wedding stuff. Probably wouldn’t recommended unless a golden girls Stan.

This is a fun, cozy mystery perfect for fans of the Golden Girls. The characters jump off the page. Although Dorothy and Rose feature more heavily in this book than Sophia or Blanche, the dynamic between them is delightful. The plot feels like a cross between The Golden Girls and Murder She Wrote. I enjoyed the book. I wish it featured more of the snappy sitcom banter we are used to with these ladies, Overall, I had a fun time. I usually don't like cozy mysteries, but for the Golden Girls...I loved it.

This reads just like an episode of The Golden Girls! And I have to say I missed these ladies and was super glad to spend time with them. I'm so happy this is to be a series.
Rose wants to throw her niece, Nettie, a beautiful wedding with all the St. Olaf traditions. However, the event venue in St. Olaf burned down and Rose has to scramble to throw the wedding in Miami. WITH all the traditions to boot. No worries because she has Blanche, Dorothy and Sophia to help her out. However, when Dorothy's terrible date is found murdered in the hotel freezer (the hotel owned by the groom's family), all herring breaks loose! Will there even be a wedding with Dorothy being the lead suspect, and can Rose pull off a wedding and a murder investigation? With The Golden Girls (and cheesecake) anything is possible!

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for this digital e-arc.*

I love watching Golden Girls so this was a very entertaining read that brought the characters to life very vividly.

Rose’s cousin Nettie and her fiancé Jason are at loose ends when their wedding venue in St. Olaf has to cancel their reservation. When Rose promises to incorporate all of the traditional St. Olaf wedding customs, the two move the wedding to Miami, with Rose as host. When a body is found during the tea-and-fish themed kickoff to the wedding week and Dorothy is the prime suspect, all four Golden Girls set out to prove her innocence – and to ensure the wedding goes off without a hitch.

When I requested this book from NetGalley, it didn’t register at first that the Golden Girls in the series name were *the Golden Girls we watched on television back in the late 1980s. Once that sunk in, I couldn’t wait to read the book to see how the ladies were portrayed on the page compared to on the screen. The author stayed true to their characters – man-hungry Blanche, kind but air-headed Rose, cranky Dorothy and ‘tough woman’ Sophia, allowing me to see and hear them in my head as I read the book. I lost track of how many times I rolled my eyes or even thought “ewww!” as the St. Olaf wedding week traditions were explained, but they made me chuckle at the same time.

The murder victim had barely been introduced before the body was found, so we didn’t know much about him. The investigation didn’t turn up much either, until a point in the story that took me totally by surprise. From there, it was relatively easy to figure out both who (in a general sense) was behind the murder and the motive.

This book is described as #1 in a new series, so I will keep an eye out for book #2, if only to see what mystery these ladies come up against next.

THE NOSTALGIA! As an OG Golden Girls fan the premise for this had me so excited and the author delivered! While reading, I absolutely heard each character's voice as I went. The story stayed true to the GG vibes with a bit of sarcasm, Rose stories, and Dorothy's resting b*tch face. It truly was a perfect cozy mystery and such a light hearted read. I loved it so much I ordered a physical copy. I am hoping this will be a series because the world needs this escapism right now.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for this advanced copy!

If you’re a Golden Girls fan, I think you’re in for a treat! The girls are back together and you won’t be able to read this book without hearing their voices! If you’re not a Golden Girls fan or don’t know much about the show, this is going to be a strange book for you! It definitely plays on jokes from the show especially in this book that mostly features Rose and her St. Olaf quirks. It IS funny, but at times felt too long. There’s a lot of running around without much progress made in the story. Go into it knowing that this is going to be a very cheesy Golden Girls storyline and not at all a serious mystery and I think you’ll enjoy it!

If you love the tv show Golden Girls, then you will love this book. Each character’s voice rings true throughout this novel, along with all the quirky antics you expect from this dynamic group of women. This is the perfect cozy mystery that will keep you engaged from the first page. The only thing that I will comment on is if Blanch is your favorite character she really isn’t highlighted as much as the other characters. This story truly focusses on Rose, Dorothy and Sophia.
Thank you so much to Hyperion Avenue and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.

Enjoyable treat for Golden Girls fans. I couldn't read this without hearing Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia's voices in my head reading each of their lines, which made it a bit slow going, but also like I was watching a lost episode of the TV show. Some of the St Olaf jokes got old and I could have done with less of the St Olaf wedding traditions and a bit more investigating, but overall it was a fun read and I thought it captured the characters pretty well. A few anachronisms, but as I read an ARC, they may have been cleaned up by the final copy.

so, here is the issue right up front... the language and writing is a bit stilted and the characters at times seem forced. It was fun to see "the girls" together again and a cozy mystery but I agree with others that at time it felt like so-so fan fiction. Should the series continue I'd love to see vast improvements in the dialogue and pacing.

A cozy mystery set in the Golden Girls universe.

As much fun as it is to spend some time with the Girls, Murder by Cheesecake is a bit muddled. We have two stories happening at once: Rose's niece's wedding and the discovery of a murder victim. A cute and fluffy book; 2.5 rounded up.

“Picture it- Sicily 1884”.

The Golden Girls have been a source of joy and comfort of mine for mannny years💗

I really have to pat this author on the back for how well she encapsulated and portrayed each personality of the individual girls in her writing! The language, the mannerisms, the emotions - all of it was spot on!

Oh Rose… poor naive (but sweet) rose 😅 iykyk. Blanche? As ‘riskay’ and horny as ever in this book (which is saying a lot!). Dorothy- the mom of the group; comforting, smart, and ready to pop off on anyone and their brother at any moment to protect her girls. AND ✨SOPHIAAA the savage✨ is and always will be my spirit animal, through and through. I just love that old, sarcastic, hilarious woman so much🤣 and her hidden-away undying love for Dorothy always brings tears to my eyes 🥹🥲

I did find the plot to be underwhelming and lacking, and I almost DNF’d this book on multiple occasions after I had read the words “St Olaf” for the hundredth time 🙃 BUT the girls and their adventure totally made this worth reading 💛 Can’t wait to read the rest of the series!

Thank you for awarding me this ARC!

Stay Golden, my friends ☺️

Posted to Goodreads: 4/13/2025

If you loved The Golden Girls, this cozy mystery will take you right back to their coral couches. Featuring the beloved characters, this book focuses on Dorothy's efforts to clear her name, and Rose's efforts at giving her niece a St. Olaf wedding, which is threatened when a body is found at the groom's family hotel. Hilarious and sweet, this was a great cozy mystery which highlighted the power of friendship and love. I was able to read a copy of this book through NetGalley and hope it finds others who want to spend some time with their favorite characters.

I’d like to start by thanking NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC.

As someone who has throughly enjoyed Golden Girls, I absolutely loved this. It was mostly from on girls POV and was more about the girls problems rather than the murder in the first half, but it was enjoyable to spend more time with the girls being themselves.

If this weren’t an IP it would receive a lower score, but I went in expecting something cozy and not sophisticated or too descriptive of the characters, and it ended up a wonderful, fun, goofy, and nostalgic experience.

The girls are at it again, but this time, someone turns up dead. Rose is in the midst of planning a wedding for her beloved cousin, Nettie, ensuring all of the traditional St. Olaf wedding events are met. Meanwhile, Dorothy is trying to find love through a VHS dating service, wanting someone to attend the wedding with. Unfortunately, when the first event of the wedding week rolls around, Dorothy's date is found expired in the fridge - right on top of the cheesecake Rose needs for the Welcome Tuna Teatime. Dorthy is suddenly the center of attention and the main person of interest. There's too much going on! Rose has to save the wedding and her friend. Dorothy must prove her innocence and mourn the man she only met once. Blanche is...there to flirt. And Sophia is in charge of sharing her knowledge of Miami with the St. Olaf crew - oh, and also saving her daughter. With only days to go until the big day, the pressure is on. Will the girls solve who killed Dorothy's date? Will Nellie get her St. Olaf-ian wedding?

I wanted to love this because I L O V E The Golden Girls, and this was the perfect event for the girls. However, some parts were overly clichéd, and the first twist was easy to guess. I wanted more of a feel of a Golden Girls episode. Also, Blanche did not get the time she deserved! Most of the story naturally focuses on Rose and Dorothy, but Sophia also has a major role. Poor Blanche is just there as a background character at times. Overall, this was a quick read and kept me relatively engaged. I don't think I'll be picking up the next book in the series despite my love for these quirky cozy mysteries. If you're a fan of The Golden Girls, I would give this a try! Just don't go in with super high expectations, and you'll probably enjoy it.