{"id":5813,"date":"2024-07-05T06:42:23","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T13:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5813"},"modified":"2024-07-05T06:42:23","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T13:42:23","slug":"ellen-byron-a-very-woodsy-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/ellen-byron-a-very-woodsy-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellen Byron: A Very Woodsy Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Golden Motel #1<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ellen Byron always brings it.\u00a0 In this series launch, exhausted TV writer Dee has found gold at the end of her particular rainbow.\u00a0 In her case, it\u2019s an abandoned mid century motel in need of lots of love at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains.\u00a0 She wants to buy it and renovate it with her ex-husband and now best friend, Jeff, whose life also needs a bit of a reboot.\u00a0 The two agree to the plan, sinking their savings into it.\u00a0 They\u2019re happily renovating when their first guest checks in: an old fellow sit-com writer frenemy of Dee\u2019s.\u00a0 He seems to be roundly disliked by everyone in town and in good cozy fashion he\u2019s shortly dispatched.\u00a0 (It\u2019s the end of his particular rainbow.)<\/p>\n

Dee and Jeff are not only suspects in the man\u2019s death, but it\u2019s also not helping to be known as the \u201cmurder motel\u201d and future reservations are being cancelled right and left.\u00a0 There are almost more catastrophes than any fledgling business \u2013 or business partners \u2013 should have to handle, but Dee and Jeff put their extensive knowledge of Law & Order<\/em> to good use as they get to sleuthing.<\/p>\n

The surrounding towns \u2013 Foundgold and Goldsgone \u2013 are filled with a delightfully solid array of quirky characters that Byron, with her talented pen, brings fully to life on the page.\u00a0 My favorite was perhaps the bakery-cafe owner Elmira who turns out to make the worst baked goods known to man, but a close second is the wispy Serena, who loves to create charcuterie boards and carries either her baby or her dog in a sling, while the other is in the accompanying stroller (they are wittily named Emmy and Oscar).\u00a0 Serena is married to a cutthroat agent who is frequently out of town.\u00a0 There\u2019s also a delightfully Eeyore style Deputy Sherriff, Raul, who, after a bit of a bumpy start with Dee and Jeff, warms up to them and even welcomes their detection assistance.<\/p>\n

The fast paced plot will nearly have you forgetting what a completely charming setting Byron has created for her characters.\u00a0 The longer Dee and Jeff are there, the more townspeople are introduced, and it\u2019s truly a skill on the part of the writer to have all of them be memorable.\u00a0 I\u2019m already looking forward to meeting them again in the next book.<\/p>\n

Byron doesn\u2019t shortchange the gorgeous natural setting surrounding the motel, or the reason that Dee is there: she needs to slow down and take a breath (literally) of fresh air. For Dee the country is full of different sounds and a different pace of life \u2013 there\u2019s even old Stoney the bear lumbering around, causing a ruckus.<\/p>\n

The motel itself is not shortchanged either, and Byron\u2019s description of the old fashioned wood paneled rooms will probably have many readers of a certain age flashing back to their childhoods.\u00a0 I\u2019m a hotel brat, and I always enjoy a hotel based series.\u00a0 I\u2019ve recently enjoyed books by S.K. Golden<\/a> and Vicki Delany<\/a>, and I\u2019m delighted to add another motel centric read to my list. — Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Golden Motel #1 Ellen Byron always brings it.\u00a0 In this series launch, exhausted TV writer Dee has found gold at the end of her particular rainbow.\u00a0 In her case, it\u2019s an abandoned mid century motel in need of lots of love at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains.\u00a0 She wants to buy it and … 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":[1754,1755,488,985,1533,1756,1276],"class_list":["post-5813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-a-very-woodsy-murder","tag-bears","tag-california","tag-ellen-byron","tag-kensington-cozies","tag-mid-century-motel","tag-robin-agnew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5813","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=5813"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5829,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5813\/revisions\/5829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}