Thank you to NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
Jamie Sinclair expects his temporary house-sitting job in a quiet seaside town to be straightforward: complete a handful of handyman projects, keep an eye on the property, and care for the owner’s black cat. Instead, the easy assignment takes a sinister turn when an elderly client dies shortly after Jamie visits her home. Suddenly, he is caught in the middle of a whodunit, forced to wonder whether his own work played a role—or whether someone had a far more deliberate reason to want the woman dead.
Bestselling author Hannah Ellis has sold more than a million copies across more than forty books. Readers know her for warm, feel-good romance series set by the sea, including Hope Cove, Loch Lannick, and the Isles of Scilly, and she has more recently won over cozy-mystery fans with her Lily Larkin Mysteries. In Death by the Sea, Ellis launches a new series that transports readers to coastal Scotland and quickly draws them in with an appealing cast. Small-town gossip, gentle humor, found-family warmth, and one especially troublesome cat give the story an inviting atmosphere, while the central mystery provides enough twists to keep the pages turning. The result feels like the promising beginning of a series with plenty of room to grow.
I give Death by the Sea 4 out of 5 stars. I was hooked almost immediately and had reached the halfway point before I realized how quickly I was reading. This is an ideal escapist novel for anyone who wants a mystery that remains light, warm, and easy to enjoy. The witty banter brings energy to the story, while the growing sense of found family gives the characters’ relationships genuine heart. Those elements kept me reading until I finished the book in a single sitting.
Although I enjoyed the novel overall, it felt slightly less polished than some of Ellis’s earlier work. A few moments could have benefited from sharper pacing and a little more depth, and the story never quite found the distinctive spark that would have moved it into five-star territory for me. Even so, the charm of the setting and the easy chemistry among the characters outweighed those weaknesses. The book succeeds at delivering comfort, intrigue, and a community worth revisiting—exactly what I hope to find in a cozy mystery.
The story includes murder and a criminal investigation, so it may not suit every reader; however, the overall tone remains gentle rather than graphic. Readers who enjoyed Heather Webber’s At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities or Lily Sparks’s The Secrets of Seaglass Cove are likely to feel at home here. Death by the Sea blends a light mystery and a touch of drama with a subtle hint of romance, all wrapped in deep friendships and found-family warmth. It is a cozy, accessible read for an afternoon when you want seaside atmosphere, likable characters, and just enough danger to keep things interesting.
Death by the Sea will be released October 1. You can grab your copy today on our Bookshop.org page!
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What I’m Reading
- Current print book: The Magic of Chamomile Cottage, Heather Webber
- Current audio book: The Great Remembering, June Cohen
- Book I’m most looking forward to: Murmuration, TJ Klune
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