One of the best books I’ve read. Ever!

Jo Nichols has taken a familiar setup (a tight-knit group of neighbors, a cozy coastal setting, and a sudden murder) and turned it into something truly special and unique. This isn’t just a quirky mystery; it’s heartfelt, emotionally rich, and beautifully layered.

From the very first chapter, I was hooked. I told myself I’d listen to just a little before getting back to work, but hours later, I was still going. Not once did I feel the urge to skip ahead or take a break. Every moment in this story had weight, charm, or purpose (sometimes all three).

The characters are messy, complicated, and real, and the way their lives intersected made my heart ache in the best possible way. There’s humor, grief, love, chaos, and, above all, a sense of found family that stayed with me long after I finished.

And can we talk about the narration? Megan Price absolutely nailed it. Her performance gave every character depth and personality, making the audiobook a completely immersive experience.

I still can’t believe this is Jo Nichols’ debut. The writing is sharp, tender, and confident. I didn’t want the story to end. I kept hoping for one more chapter, one more conversation, one more moment with these characters.

The ARC was an absolute gift. Thank you, NetGalley. I can’t wait for everyone to meet the residents of Marigold Cottages when this gem comes out in August.

I really loved this book—what a fun, cozy murder mystery! The whole cast of characters (minus the delightfully crooked cop) was so enjoyable to follow. Special shoutout to Anthony and Hamilton—easily my favorites.

I was completely drawn in by the setting—a big plot of land with cozy little cottages, each with its own quirky tenant. Mrs. B, the landlady, has a knack for “collecting” people who need a soft place to land, and that thread of found family added a lot of heart to the story.

The chapters are short and told from multiple points of view, which kept things moving at a great pace. There were a few solid twists along the way, and I really loved the ending—it wrapped up satisfyingly but still left me wanting more. Fingers crossed for a follow-up!

Mrs. B, the charming owner of Santa Barbara's Marigold Cottages, has a unique talent for collecting people as tenants. Her quirky residents include Ocean, a lesbian artist and mother of two; Lily Ann, a perfectionist workaholic estranged from her husband; Sophie, a wannabe playwright grappling with past trauma; Hamilton, an agoraphobic gamer; and new arrival Anthony, an ex-con.

When Sophie discovers a dead body, local police are quick to pin it on Anthony. But Mrs. B adamantly believes in his innocence, prompting the tenants of Marigold Cottages to form a group chat and collective to find the real killer.

This book was an absolute blast! Getting to know each of these eccentric tenants reminded me so much of Only Murders in the Building. I loved uncovering their secrets and piecing together the clues to figure out the culprit. The audiobook narrators did a fantastic job, and the engaging writing style kept me hooked from start to finish.

Very cute story, definitely in line with "The Thursday Murder Club" and "Only Murders in the Building." I enjoyed the story, but it was quite similar to many other cozy mysteries. I felt that there were some loose ends I would have wrapped up differently. It was a good audiobook; I would have rather read a physical copy to make the script elements more obvious and easier to understand. Too many characters to keep track of.

4.5⭐

I fell in love with this cozy mystery and the delightfully charming and quirky residents of the Marigold Cottages. The story is told through the various perspectives of the residents which I love because each is so unique and brings something necessary and needed to the collective as they work to solve the mystery and save their beloved home.

I enjoyed the narration and appreciate what it added to the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

I listened to The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective. It is a murder mystery similar to the Thursday Murder Club. The tenants of the cottages ban together to try to solve the mystery. There are a lot of characters that were hard to keep track of especially in the audio format. I recommend this to anyone who likes cozy mysteries.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

This one just wasn’t for me—but I can see it appealing to fans of classic cozy mysteries. The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective has all the familiar ingredients: a quiet residential square, a murder that shocks the community, and a cast of eccentric tenants, all under the watchful eye of an older, quirky landlord. If you enjoyed 10 Marchfield Square by Nicola Whyte, this might be right up your alley.

I hoped the audiobook might help me connect with the story more, but unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. The dual narration was confusing, and when character voices overlapped, the contrast between narrators was so jarring it pulled me out of the story. In particular, I find that some male narrators struggle with voicing female characters in a way that feels natural—and that was definitely a distraction here.

The characters themselves felt more like a checklist of traits than fully developed individuals, and their defining features were repeated often. While I appreciated the attempt at diversity and theatrical structure (some of the book is even written in script format), none of it quite landed for me. In the end, I just didn’t care much about who committed the murder—or why.

That said, readers who love character-driven cozy mysteries with quirky flair may still find this charming. It just wasn’t the right fit for me.

4.5 🌟 rounded up!

Run to grab a copy of this title when it’s released! This is not my typical read, I’m more of a dark disturbing thriller girly and “cozy” mysteries generally don’t catch my eye. However, a friend recommended this one and I’m so glad she did because this is a real gem!

What I liked: Honestly pretty much everything. The cast of quirky characters that live in the Marigold Cottages are a great balance of kooky and sincere, they feel unique without feeling contrived, they feel layered and I cared about them. Sometimes I think these types of books can cross over to being cloyingly twee just for the sake of it, but this one did not. I really enjoyed the mystery, I was invested and was listening late into the night to find out who the culprit was! Also, the humor! This book was genuinely funny and made me chuckle throughout. I think if you have a particular set of values and a certain view of social justice, then this author’s humor and one liners will appeal to you like it did to me.

What I didn’t like: I think my only nitpick was the very last chapter felt a tiny bit rushed and there was a lot revealed in a short paragraph or two. I didn’t even really have too much of a problem with it, but it did feel like a tiny bit of an another thought. Also, I wanted a scene of Anthony whale watching! Come on!

Loved this book and I can’t wait to read more from Jo Nichols!

I loved the cast of characters and the quirky found family. Who doesn't love a little whodunit with a twist?

This is an instant new favorite! And this is a rare example of a book where it truly feels like the audience is “everyone.” It is so humorous and heartfelt and sweet and fun and meaningful all at the same time! I’m not sure I have ever been made to love so many characters so quickly! And the mystery is great too. I really cannot say enough good things about this book. What an absolute treasure.

This was a fun cozy murder mystery debut with a wide range of characters! I really enjoyed all of the characters and their quirks. They ended up mixing together so well!

There were parts of this that were slower and I didn't love the play portion of it, but I didn't full guess the ending! Highly recommend if you're looking for an easy cozy read!

Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press & MacMillan Audio for advance copies!

Solid narration. A cute cozy mystery with just the right mix of found family feels and quirky characters.

2.5 stars rounded up!

I’m still new to reading mysteries but the blurb comparing it to Only Murders in the Building drew me in. I’d say that comparison is accurate as this story has an amazing cast of eccentric characters.

It’s a very character driven book as opposed to plot. I felt like the murder aspect fell away at various points as the various characters own stories unfolded. It felt a bit disjointed because of this and because of the sheer number of POVs and chapters.

That said, I did enjoy the characters. They are all such different people and I found Hamilton and Lily-Anne in particular to be delightful to read about. The POV chapters seemed pretty well spread out so I felt like most characters got a fair amount of ‘screen time’.

One thing I think was a bit much is that this book has 99 chapters in it. Even in audiobook format that just felt way too long. Plus, ending on chapter 99 and not 100 brought out my inner Lily-Anne because it felt like it should’ve ended on an even number.

The narrator, Megan Price, definitely helped make this book more interesting. She did an excellent job of fleshing the various characters she voiced out and making them seem somewhat real.

I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy this book but it wasn’t my favourite. If you like a very character driven murder mystery then definitely pick this up!

Thanks very much to netgalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with an audiobook eARC in exchange for my honest review.

A delightful cozy mystery with an eclectic band of characters! Definitely worth the read and I felt so attached to them by the end of it! I loved the multiple POVs!

The narrator did a great job giving individuality to the band of characters!

Quirky characters, interesting plot, multiple POVs.

I had a hardtime following all the characters, plots, subplots, reasoning etc. I loved Mrs. B, I loved Anthony, and I felt pity for Sophie, etc. The reasons behind the murders were easy enough: greed, lasciviousness, and protection - and if you know this, you can identify what happened with murder 1 (although it gets cleared up at VERY END of the story.

The characters form a family, and families protect each other.

Will I read a second book? Yes, as I think it takes more than one book to see if you like and enjoy the author's writing style.

Not my favorite, and I found myself reading ahead every few paragraphs. All in all, it is enjoyable once you get into it, but if too many POVs bother you, then you might want to skip.

Fine narration. I like cozy mysteries, but this one didn’t capture my interest at all. Loved the concept.

There’s a secret in Santa Barbara. Not everybody has to pay millions to live near the beach in what’s called America’s Riviera. All you have to do is endear yourself to Golda Bakofsky, a/k/a Mrs. B., the quirky old lady who owns the Marigold Cottages, a group of charming Craftsman bungalows just minutes away from the water.

Mrs. B., a widow who moved west from New York when she was young, has lived there for decades and she collects people to live in the Marigold Cottages, often for below-market rent. There is Ocean, a lesbian artist with two kids; Sophie, a young theater employee with a traumatic past; Hamilton, an agoraphobic with an addiction to factoids; Lily-Ann, a zaftig and fearsomely intelligent woman with a bit of OCD, who came to the cottages after separating from her financial wheeler-dealer husband, Piotr; and Nicholas, who works at the city planning department and keeps away from everybody else in the cottages.

It surprises and dismays everyone when Mrs. B. invites the tattooed and bullet-headed Anthony to move into the tiny studio apartment that had been untenanted and used for storage. Not only is Anthony scary looking (Serbian Thug #2, as Sophie characterizes him), but nobody can figure out why Mrs. B. chose him to be a tenant. After only a few weeks, a corpse is found at the cottages and Anthony is quickly arrested, pegged immediately by a local police detective as the likely murderer because of his previous conviction for a violent crime. But Mrs. B. is insistent that Anthony would never do such a thing and rallies the tenants to his defense. They establish a group chat, calling themselves the Marigold Cottages Murder Collective, and dig into the case. The collective uncover much about each other in the process, which alters relationships and raises questions about the future of the Marigold Cottages.

On the night when an attack and a second murder occur, the collective agree on their theory of the case, which they present to the police detective who had previously been hell-bent to nail Anthony. But is their theory the truth?

Though the publisher calls this in the vein of The Thursday Murder Club, just take that as to be expected from a PR team when you have a group approach to amateur detection, especially when one of its members is elderly. The only book this reminded me of, a little, is Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, which also features an eccentric mother-hen landlady.

This is a feel-good mystery, with interesting characters and a more complex plot than I was expecting. One slightly odd note is that the police detective gets chapters with his own point of view, and he’s a real jerk, only interested in his own image and not at all in actually solving crime. This is consistent with the author’s clear anti-police narrative, but did make me wonder if it should come with more of a backstory.

Megan Price is an adequate narrator. I was a little irritated by her mispronunciation of Piotr’s name, and I would have liked her to give Mrs. B. a little bit of a New York accent, considering the old woman’s background.

First a huge thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity. I wanted to adore this book, but I really really didn’t. There is absolutely no reason in my opinion for a book of this size to have over 90 chapters, additionally the fake screenplay format of a lot of the chapters is absolutely unbearable. Additionally, while Mrs. B, Ocean, Lillianne, Hamilton, and Nick are all perfectly likable characters, the police officer is a cartoonish caricature of a pigheaded and biased officer, so the chapters from his perspective pretty much only serve to turn him into a Disney villain twisting his mustache. DNF’d this one by 60% in because of the lack of story craft and pure boredom.

4 stars

This is a very charming cozy set in one of the best So Cal beach towns and filled with a hilarious cast of characters.

Mrs. B owns Marigold Cottages, and while she manages the property, it's really secret and overt management of her tenants' lives and happiness that best characterizes her. She's witty and definitely meddling, but everyone knows her concern comes from genuinely caring for them. She reflects this through thinking about her tenants in both the long and short term, and she becomes a unifying force for the entire group. This is heartwarming without being saccharine, which is especially magical at a time when so much of society seems to be rolling in an empathy-free space.

Like most cozies, the mystery isn't particularly advanced, but I really enjoyed the journey and the resolution. I'd be happy to read more about this group of well meaning misfits.

I really enjoyed this story and its cast of characters! The eclectic mix of personalities kept me engaged the whole time, and I like how the mystery came together at the end. It wasn’t too violent or overly suspenseful, and made for a nice light listen. I wouldn’t mind reading another story set at the Marigold Cottages, should the author decide to turn this into a series.

The narration was pretty good, and I would be glad to listen to other works by these narrators.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to this ALC and provide honest feedback.