Motherhood is Murder

Maternal Instincts Mystery #2

by Diana Orgain

The author of Bundle of Trouble delivers a new Maternal Instincts mystery.

Nights out are hard to come by for new mommy Kate Connelly. So when Kate and her husband are invited to a dinner cruise hosted by her new mommy club, Roo & You, they jump at it. But when the president of the club takes a deadly spill, everyone becomes suspect-and Kate's on deck to solve the mystery.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Cozy, Ebooks, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook

262 pages, Paperback

First published January 12, 2010

About the author

Diana Orgain is the USA Today Bestselling Author of the Maternal Instincts Mystery Series. She is also the Author of the Love or Money Mystery series and The Roundup Crew Mysteries (Yappy Hour and Trigger Yappy).
Diana is the New York Times Bestselling co-author of the Scrapbooking Mystery Series with Laura Childs.
Diana's latest release is 4 Sleuths and a Bachelorette, a fun collaboration with USA Today Bestselling Authors, Leslie Langtry, Traci Andrighetti, and Arlene Mcfarlane. Right now she's working on the next release in the Maternal Instincts Mystery, Murder Comes Crawling.
To keep up to date with the latest releases visit Diana at www.dianaorgain.com

Series:
* Maternal Instincts Mystery

Reviews

[Aya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this cute series!!

This one is fantastic, and the case in the book was so complicated this time, but I succeeded in solving it before Kate! I was so happy and proud of myself! :D

The Case:
When Kate and her husband are invited to a dinner cruise hosted by her new mommy club, Roo & You, they jump at it. But when the president of the club takes a deadly spill, everyone becomes suspect-and Kate's on deck to solve the mystery.

[Emmalynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only good thing is that I got the first three books free. Kate is irritating, erratic, hysterical, and all the things (not good)
Don’t know how she can be a PI. Ughhh these books suck. The mystery would have been good if not for Kate, she 100% ruins the book.

[Shawna Shaheen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 2nd books and serie. Kate just had a little girl in first series. She getting a hang of everything she can do to have her new baby Laura. Kate with her husband Joe is going on a cruise with her new mommy group Too and You. So they go and Margaret( the one that told Kate about it) Helene Emily and Sara and their husbands came. They were hanging out but Helene did not show up after awhile at the cruise. Someone says they saw her fall down steps. When Kate got home she was trying to figure out what happened and trying to get her PI license so she could investigate.. So she asked a real Pi. To get Kate on his for awhile. Kate mom and the PI were dating. Kate found out about a few things including affairs dodgy characters and situations. Love little Laura she is adorable. And I love how Kate juggles to launch her PI and taking care of her beautiful baby

[Laura de Leon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love it when a book is exactly what I'm looking for-- in this case, a cute, fun mystery.

The mystery (murder in a moms' group, oh my!) was cleanly executed, but the main reason to read this is the same as pretty much any cozy-- the characters.

Kate Connolly is amazingly on the ball for a new mom, although she has a fairly easy baby, particularly when dad is holding down the fort. Still, it's fun to read the ever-changing lists, and the concerns about 2 month old baby milestones.

I found Kate to be a great balance of self-absorbed, baby-absorbed, and thinking about other people. She wants to be a PI because it fits in with her desired lifestyle (home with the baby), but it works because she's genuinely interested in people, and that comes through in her job performance.

Kate's mom and her friend Paula are secondary characters that I'm looking forward to seeing more of in future books. Her husband was a little boring, but that's OK. Every kooky detective needs a sane sidekick somewhere!

The whole book is a little goofy without being over the top, which made for an entertaining read.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun. I don't know any mom like this..[I think]. I love the "To Do" list.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Maybe I have changed too much to enjoy cozy mysteries. They used to be a favorite genre. Now I am mostly annoyed by a person who puts herself in danger that could easily be avoided when she has a month-old infant at home. It's not terribly written, and the mystery was okay.

[janele ⋆｡°✩ · Rating 5 out of 5]

sorry im actually eating this series up wtf 🥲🥲🥲🥲

[Dagmar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this series.

[Charlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - 4 stars, so rounded up.

This is the second book in Ms Orgain's debut series, and I liked it better than the first. As I read the story, the timetable seemed a bit less hectic and I had less trouble with the new-mom part-time sleuth leaving her baby with dad or Grandma.

There are some humorous moments, as well. The scene where I laughed aloud the longest [and even read parts of to my husband] was when Kate was dressing up for a business interview with a lawyer nicknamed Gary the Grizzly. Let's just say here that her postpartum body and her wardrobe choices played havoc with each other at just the wrong point in time. It was tastefully done, completely clean, and truly funny.

Kate's best friend, Paula, has decided (upon her return from Paris two months before her due date) to join Kate's mother as partners in Kate's investigative endeavors.

I won't attempt to summarize the story, but I would cheerfully say that cozy mystery readers might want to pick up this series. There are enough characters from the first book who appear in the second that it would be a good idea to start at the beginning of the series.

[Regan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a better read than book 1, Bundle of Trouble. If this hadn't been a book club read I would not have continued with the series, but it is a much better read. Book 1 read more like a new mother's diary of dealing with a new baby rather than a cozy mystery heroine solving her first crime. In this one she gets out and does some investigating, moves along with obtaining her license and the crime has some great twists to it. Skip book 1 and go right to this one if you're looking for a fun, easy and entertaining read.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not worse than the first. Still pretty sexist, still lacking characters to like, still weak in showing its hand too soon. I really want to like these characters but frankly I don’t. In real life they’d be those people you run into at school events and awkwardly chat with, while you hope they don’t run school boards, etc, as they have a really hard time seeing outside their bubble.

[Mikaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't a big fan of this one as the last book. I didn't even finish it. Needless to say, I don't think i'll be reading the other two books

[Julie Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. In fact I think it is my favourite one in the series. I had guessed at the killer but with a number of suspects and twists, I wasn't sure. The mystery was good and focused more on the reason why I started listening to the series, the baby aspect. Okay Kate still needed a baby sitter for most of the book and is still making 'to do lists' that she has no plans of keeping but somehow that didn't annoy me as much as it did in the first book. I like the characters and the home life fun. I hope there is more investigations for Kate to come, maybe with a slightly older Laurie.
As any new parents know finding time alone together is challenging, which is why Kate jumps at the chance to join a mother and baby group's dinner cruise. Despite only knowing the owner of the group, who she met while shopping for baby shampoo, it's a great way for her and her husband to be together away from there new born baby girl. Things are going well and the other couples seem nice, until one of the wives takes a tumble down the stairs bringing the night to a close and Kate's favourite detective on board. Kate introduced herself to the new mother's as a private investigator when they first met and now one of them wants to hire her to look into her best friends death, as she thinks her husband could be responsible and actually meant to kill her. Could the wrong woman died? Things within the group is not well, cheating, betrayal and revenge just a few of the motives. Can Kate get to the bottom of the murder? Despite only being investigator in training?
I like the fact the author is the narrator for this book because she already knew the characters so well and this comes across well in her retelling.

[Lora Shouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in this series. Once again, it was a fun, not-too-taxing little mystery.

New mom Kate Connolly has been invited to join a Mommy Group. The first meeting she goes to is a dinner cruise with just the parents – no kids. And on the cruise, one of the mothers dies. She appears to have been murdered.

This mother’s group seems to consist of very wealthy moms. And there is all kinds of drama going on between them. The murder victim was seeing her best friend’s husband. Another mom was kicked out because her two-year-old bit one of the other mom’s new baby. And it turns out that the murder victim, one of the group’s founding members, didn’t even have any children.

The best friend hires Kate to find about her husband’s affair – she doesn’t realize her husband was seeing her friend – despite Kate’s lack of a private investigator’s license. And the case only continues to get more confusing.

The star of the book is, once again, baby Laurie, who is just cute. And the best investigators turn out to be Kate’s mother and her best friend. Kate herself could still use a little work on her interview skills. But she is improving.

My advice to Kate would be, if she wants to belong to a mother’s group, she should form her own with maybe her best friend, Paula, and her future sister-in-law, Kiku, who sound like they are much more Kate’s kind of people, not to mention much less dangerous.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motherhood is Murder: Maternal Instincts Mystery Series Book 2is by Diane Orgain. This mystery series is combined with a comedy to make people laugh at both PI’s and having a baby. The main characters in all the books are Jim, Kate, her Mom, Paula, Albert Galigani, and Inspector Patrick McNeary. Kenny, the neighbor boy takes a larger part as the series continues.
Kate is finding that having a baby involves a lot more than keeping her safe and warm and fed. She should be worrying about having her prepared for school, enrolled in the right preschool and elementary, and even which college she should go to! While shopping, she finds Helene and Margaret who had formed a mommy group and they invited her and Jim to join the group on a dinner cruise where they could get acquainted with the others in the group and find out more about mommy groups and their necessity.
While enjoying the dinner cruise with Jim, Kate accidently runs into Margaret who tells her they need to go back to their group as an accident has occurred and Helene had fallen. Kate had just begun her PI’s business under the mentorship of Albert Galigani Senior PI. She is hired by Margaret to find out who killed Helene and to help discover who was having an affair
The things Kate gets into inadvertently is amazing and more so because she does so while carrying her daughter with her.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have heard several people rave about Miss Orgain's writing and stories.
I was looking forward to reading her book, and wound up being disappointed in the MC's work ethics.
Kate is invited to at "New Mommy" cruise where one of the founders of the group is murdered.

Kate is hired by one of the members who was a friend of the dead woman.

Pro's:
Developed characters, and a good plotline.

Con's:
Kate takes the case as a private investigator (signed contract) even though she doesn't have a license, nor does she have a licensed PI overlooking her case as the one she knows told her he couldn't as he is still recovering from major surgery.

Kate seems to momentarily forget that she has a 7 week old daughter who she continuously reminisces about.
She doesn't seem to care very much that she is breaking the law and will be facing fines and probably jail time when she is caught operating as a PI without a license, nor will she be able to acquire one for several years after being convicted.

[zapkode · Rating 5 out of 5]

{My thoughts} – Kate finds herself considering the possibility of joining a mommy and me group with her daughter. She happened to have run into the co-founders while shopping for baby things. They invited her on a cruise that the moms and dads would be attending in order to give her the opportunity to get to know the other members and a feel for the group.

Kate and Jim go on the cruise and wouldn’t you know someone ends up dead. She isn’t well liked by the officers that are assigned the case and they make it known when she’s being questioned.

I really enjoyed this book. It was fairly jumpy when it came to the back and forth and trying to figure out who could have done it and why, but in the end everything was wonderfully pulled together.

I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

[Tammy Massey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am hooked!!!

I love this new to me author! I can not hardly wait to get to the next book! The heroine of this series is a new mother and she has found an exciting new adventure around every corner. She hopes to become a private investigator as a new career. I enjoy reading about her growth as a PI , as a mom that loves her peanut and her very supportive husband. The storyline is good and new , not some old cliche of murder mystery. I would like to see more depth to the characters, some clarity to the why behind the murder and more cohesiveness to the plot. Sometimes there is a twist that comes from nowhere and I like to put the clues together and realize at the end - OMG! I knew that,why didn't I think of that clue. Just needs a little more clues for the reader. On to the next book .........

[JoeK · Rating 3 out of 5]

More bad than good. The mystery was interesting and a bit surprising at the end, but Kate, the star of the series is probably the worst part of the whole novel. Even her mother and her best friend Paul were better at getting clues than she was. When Kate wasn't blundering about "investigating" she was blubbering about her daughter falling behind other babies' milestones. Anyone this worried about her kid should be staying at home instead of working such an unstable job. And after the beating she takes from the villain at the end of the story, she should be seriously looking into some other line of work. Unfortunately she obviously doesn't see things that way or the series would have ended at two books. But it does for me. I prefer my detectives to be a bit smarter and less whiney.

[IAmTheHolly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, I’d give this book a solid ehh. My favorite characters are Kate’s mom, Kate’s husband, and the neighbor Kenny. They are vaguely interesting characters, but all the characters seem fairly flat. The writing didn’t catch my attention well, and the theme didn’t either (see No Kids Required-I’m not exactly interested in having kids). The story ended up having a few twists and turns and wasn’t totally a formulaic cozy mystery, but wasn’t all that entertaining either.

I’ll go 5 of 10 for enjoyment and 4 of 5 for readability. I don’t plan to read more in this series.

-Holly

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[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent well written mystery! Kate Connelly is on a dinner cruise when a murder occurs. She gets involved because she can’t seem to not get nosy! In the right place at the right and wrong time throughout the book is so true.
She is hired by a woman to prove her husband is cheating on her but the plot thickens and you definitely have plot twists. Because she is being helped by her mom, best friend, Paula and a recovering PI. So much action and we must not forget all the help she gets from her husband Jim and Kenny.
I throughly enjoyed the book and do recommend it to anyone who enjoys a great mystery!

[Lucy Takeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I’d rate this 3.5. I liked it quite a bit more than the first book, which had just too much baby care/leaking breast stuff for me. I must admit that it took me quite a while to narrow down my suspect list.
Kate runs into some women that suggest she join their new moms group. They invite her on a cruise on SF Bayvto meet the group, and husbands are invited. It sounds ideal—-until one of the women falls down the stairs and dies under suspicious circumstances. Kate starts snooping, getting support from the P.I. In the first novel, only because her mom is dating him and pressures him into assisting. There are numerous characters and social interactions to keep track of.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I laughed so hard, listening to this book in public. Literally guffawed!!!!
Love Kate's “to do” checklists.
Kate brings in her mom and best friend on this one.
Funny how Kate's mom can manage 2 guys at once.
I knew as soon as Jim got the purple stuffed animal, it would come in helpful.
Can’t wait to read more about how she solves crimes. I think this one was appealing because she’s helping her family out of financial distress.
I did get confused by the many many female characters.
Moms clubs saved me when my kids were little. I appreciated this part of the story.

I get the bag on the cover of each book but not the cat.

[Catherine H Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second in a charming series about a new mom, her baby, husband, mother and assorted friends. The premise is a story about a new mom that is reluctant to give up her time with a newborn to return to her less then inspired career as a receptionist. Through a series of unfortunate events she decides she will be private investigator. This series strikes a cord with me as I also decided, many moons ago, to embark on a new career so that I could also stay with my babies. Worked for me I hope it works for the characters in this series. Good time, good read.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Motherhood is Murder (A funny mystery) (A Maternal Instincts Mystery Book 2), my second read from author Diana Orgain & the second book in her Maternal Instinct Series, a book I'd gotten back in August of 2016 and lost track of until now. An enjoyable cozy mystery. “I received a free Kindle copy of this book & am voluntarily leaving a review." The gifting of this book did not affect my opinion of it. I look forward to reading more from this author. Next up is Formula for Murder (A Funny Mystery) (A Maternal Instincts Mystery Book 3) . (RIP Marley January 20, 2014 - July 24, 2018).

[Marietta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the whole story line and all the twist and turns of the murder mystery. The main character is so fun and she try so hard to be a good P.I. and also a good mother. It took a while to figure out who the murder was but was able to figure it out before they told you who it was. There were so many choices as who the murderer could be but it was nice the way she had very one looking so guilty. I would recommend this series to anyone who enjoys a good cozy mystery with a lot of laugh in it.

[Deborah Robb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great book for a rainy weekend. Kate Connelly is a new mom and has been invited to join a mommy group. Kate and her husband, Jim, join the other moms and their spouses on a dinner cruise. During the cruise, one of the moms, Helene, is found dead. Kate is thrown into the search for Helene's murderer. There is no shortage of suspects and Kate is kept busy trying to find the murderer and be a good mom to her newborn daughter.

[Argum · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second book finds baby Laurie a month or so old and her mother trying to make it as a PI properly. Cute but a little old at this point. After sort of joining a mothers group she is hired to figure out if one husband is a cheater and who killed a non mother member of said group. Lots of strange things and some poorly written essential clues that gave away the game. Also some strange asides seem to have some points that could be annoying like about breast is best.

[Elizabeth Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am wondering if i have the right book my book cover is a huge boat. (or is it a ship?) from KU ...fun read. i love a good cozy mystery. fun read. quirky ...does that mean cozy? or?? i wonder. will read more soon. i am new to DO. i do believe. gotta check. i am leaning on yes, she is new to me. love finding new authors. there are 11 total books in this series. and i have only read this book. book 2.

[Jean Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I don't think Kate would have been interested in joining that mommy club if she had known what the women were like. So many mean, conniving women who loved to criticize each other. I thought it was weird that the victim was one of the founders of the group since she didn't even have children yet. I like Kate, but she really needs to learn more about being a PI before deciding she is one. Although if she hadn't been staking out the last place, a woman would have been killed. So many suspects with various motives. I didn't figure out who the killer was until near the end. Pleasant read and humorous in spots. This is a clean story.