{"id":5715,"date":"2024-05-17T06:13:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T13:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5715"},"modified":"2024-05-17T06:13:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T13:13:19","slug":"ann-claire-a-cyclists-guide-to-crime-croissants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/ann-claire-a-cyclists-guide-to-crime-croissants\/","title":{"rendered":"Ann Claire: A Cyclist’s Guide to Crime & Croissants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Series debut<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is a charming debut, set in the French countryside.\u00a0 As promised in the title, it provides both cycling and baked goods.\u00a0 The main character, Sadie Greene, has shucked her secure actuary job in Chicago after the hit and run death of her best friend, Gem, and bought a French bicycle touring company.\u00a0 She\u2019s all in and her little company, Oui Cycle, is about to take off on it\u2019s first tour. Joining her are \u2013 let\u2019s be real \u2013 the suspects: her hometown almost family, the Appletons (parents, son, and girlfriend); a sleek German, Manfred; two Scottish sisters who can\u2019t get enough of the baked goods; and a supposedly undercover travel writer, Nigel.\u00a0 In true Murder, She Wrote<\/em> style, two of the most unpleasant on the tour, Nigel and Dom Appleton, seem targeted for doom.<\/p>\n

As does Sadie\u2019s little company.\u00a0 She\u2019s been plagued by graffiti and when the tour starts, a series of unfortunate happenings which sadly include the probably not accidental death of the stubborn and dissatisfied Dom Appleton, who had seemed determined not to enjoy himself.\u00a0 He also owned the company Sadie worked for and was trying to lure her back, despite Sadie\u2019s assurances she\u2019s happy with Oui Cycle.<\/p>\n

What sets this cozy apart, despite a pretty conventional set up \u2013 is Sadie\u2019s voice, which is lightly snarky and exasperated as she aims to meet the needs of all her (very needy) clients.\u00a0 As a reader, her voice drew me into her character and made me care about her.\u00a0 She\u2019s helped by her staff, the practical Ukrainian Nadiya, and Jordi, who runs the tech end of things and drives the Oui Cycle van.\u00a0 Complication: Jordi has a police record and he\u2019s a convenient scapegoat for all that happens.\u00a0 Well, cozy fans, we know the reformed with a record are never the culprits.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost a rule.<\/p>\n

The book is punctuated by the details of the tour \u2013 each day\u2019s itinerary it itemized at the beginning of the chapters \u2013 as well as letters written by Sadie to Gem.\u00a0 It\u2019s a brilliant way to get a look inside Sadie\u2019s state of mind.\u00a0 She\u2019s a classic mystery outsider \u2013 she\u2019s of the tour but she\u2019s the organizer, so she\u2019s looking at things from a detached point of view.\u00a0 She\u2019s not the one enjoying the spa at the end of the day, she\u2019s the one trying to organize everyone and get them (and their bikes) where they need to be.\u00a0 There\u2019s also a good amount of gentle humor to the writing, always a welcome addition in any novel.<\/p>\n

I thought as I read I had figured out what was going on but I was pleasantly surprised to discover I was wrong in my assumptions. \u00a0As Sadie combs through her feelings about both her grief at losing Gem and the death on the tour of Dom Appleton (as well as the possible death of her little touring company), she\u2019s also sorting through the details of the crime and reaching a solution.\u00a0 While this does include a trip into the dark alone (this should also be a rule: don\u2019t let your female heroine go off in the dark alone when a killer is lurking), the author pulls this off.\u00a0 She also delights the reader with an armchair tour of Southern France and includes a recipe for a difficult but delicious sounding desert at the end.\u00a0 This is a wonderful series kick off with an enchanting main character. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Series debut This is a charming debut, set in the French countryside.\u00a0 As promised in the title, it provides both cycling and baked goods.\u00a0 The main character, Sadie Greene, has shucked her secure actuary job in Chicago after the hit and run death of her best friend, Gem, and bought a French bicycle touring company.\u00a0 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1691,1057,1692,1694,1089,1693,321,1533,1276],"class_list":["post-5715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-a-cyclists-gide-to-crime-and-croissants","tag-amateur-sleuth","tag-ann-claire","tag-armchair-travel","tag-baked-goods","tag-biking","tag-france","tag-kensington-cozies","tag-robin-agnew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5715"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5719,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5715\/revisions\/5719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}