Mind Your Own Murder

Persephone Pringle Cozy Mysteries #1

by Patti Larsen

Recently fifty and divorced, wholistic therapist Persephone Pringle’s plan to spend a month on a retreat just for her turns into a disaster when the neighbor next door—who instantly dislikes Seph—winds up dead on her beach. When Seph lands on the suspect list, she’s determined to find out whodunnit before her retreat—and her life—can be ruined.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Cozy, Contemporary, Ebooks, Amazon

200 pages, Paperback

First published October 6, 2021

About the author

I write a lot of paranormal books for someone who is afraid of the dark. And I wonder why I have to sleep with the lights on. Sometimes life is a teenaged B horror movie and I'm the one who investigates when the scary music is playing. But the voices are calling and resistance is… Yes. I am a Star Trek geek, too. And a fan of RPG’s. With a slight coolness factor since I've been told I'm allowed to join the pops.

Naw. I like being a nerdy girl :)

Reviews

[randi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I felt like I was reading notes


What author writes in incomplete sentences? That was very distracting. It reads like a teenagers personal journal. I wouldn't be interested in the sequel.

[Julie Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay but for a therapist the main character did too much whining for my liking, she is talking about stepping in during an argument and how easy it would be to sort out and then in the next breath it's non of her business and she is staying out of it because she wants peace and quiet. Also the little old lady with dementia hit a little bit to close to home and just tugged on my heart strings making me want to cry. The mystery while good, it did suddenly just get solved (just before the killer turns his sights on her) but how she could tell from the clue, I don't know. It is a start to a new series, so it will be interesting to see how the main character and her Cat develop.
Persephone newly divorced takes a month away from everything she knows to find herself, instead she finds the cottage she rented is sandwich between a bully and a busybody. The bully it seems like nothing better than to argue with everybody he sees including his own daughter, Persephone landlord for the month, the police and of course Persephone hereslf. The busybody is an elder lady who keeps getting away from her just as elderly husband caregiver. The holiday isn't proving to be the quiet break she had been planning, especially when it seem somebody wants her gone. Then she stumbles over a dead body while out for a morning walk and I looks like her chance to leave early has been and gone. She was the last know person to argue with the victim and the police want her to stick around for more questioning. Instead Persephone decides if she doesn't want to get arrest for the murder than she had better solve the murder herself, as long as she can convince her FBI ex husband that she doesn't need him to swoop in and recuse her. That is of course unless she becomes the target of the killer.

[Tari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed meeting Persephone or Seph as she goes by and her daughter Callie. Even though Callie was only heard from via phone or video calls, she seemed like a pretty awesome daughter. Poor Seph sure stepped into a nest of weirdos when she came to Zephyr, Maine when she was really seeking peace and quiet. The only normal creature there was Bella, the cat, lol. Neighbor Candace seemed ok though and way more normal than her always-angry father she lived with. I did also like Theresa from the farmer's stand and thought if Seph did stay around town, she'd make a good sidekick for solving murders with her.

I had a feeling eventually about whodunit but it wasn't a whole lot sooner than when Seph figured it out, but by then it was too late. She really needed to use her head and stay alive. Bella ended up proving to be a handy weapon eventually. All was explained, then Seph was off to her next adventure at home or wherever life took her. I'm interested in borrowing the next on KU to see what kind of mystery she gets into next time. I'm sure Bella kitty might be happy to provided some more killer protection.

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not my first Patti Larsen. I enjoyed the last one about as much as I enjoyed this one. Two similar main characters in the narratives, both unlikeable, both busybodies, both occurring in bed and breakfast inns at small town destinations. Both stories were too short in my humble opinion and suffer from a lack of development. However, both stories were entertaining reads that make evaluation difficult.

Persephone Pringle is a wholistic therapist, recently divorced, attempting a getaway month to take some time for adventure and fun. Her destination is poorly chosen because the loud obnoxious neighbor she feared would become a problem throughout her stay has done her the kindness of dying on the first night of her stay.

Needless to say, her vacation is interrupted by interrogation, a suspicious sheriff with his own glass house he must protect from slingers of stones, her handsome host with the overly solicitous manner, the daughter of the dead neighbor that suspects her father of having killed her mother, or the neighborly couple with the Alzheimer's wife and protective husband. The red herrings abound when the dead was villainous.

Good story, but too short with an under-developed plot. Patti Larsen writes intriguing plots, just not enough to go longer than 200 pages. I wanted more.

[Kristen Lewendon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first met our leading lady in the ‘When the Cat's Away’ anthology, which gave me a good introduction to how Seph’s mind works. Now that I’m in a similar age bracket, I loved that Persephone was the quintessential “interfering little old lady” without either looking or acting like an old lady. She’s got a lot of Jessica Fletcher-like qualities that made following the twisting path to the solution a lot of fun. I’m already looking forward to seeing what Ms. Persephone Pringle gets up to next.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute cozy mystery. A fifty year old goes on a post divorce retreat in Maine. She gets whacky neighbors and murder. I liked the humor and Bella the fluffy white cat.

[Nadine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable book.

I liked that the main character is not a 20-something but she’s 50, and her problems were relatable. Well, not the being-a-suspect-in-a-murder obvs. But her ‘normal’ problems LOL. I liked how she takes matters into her own hands, simply because she has to. I liked following her on her investigation. And I also like the fact that already, more books are out in this new series! Will read more!

[Lise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A month-long sabbatical in an oceanfront cottage sounds like the perfect way for Persephone to transition to her newly-divorced life. And it would have been too if she hadn't been greeted on arrival by the town crank who lived next door. When she finds him floating dead in the ocean, Persephone becomes suspect number one and it's up to her to track down the true killer.

Persephone and I didn't click, alas. In theory, we should have but we just didn't. Regardless, the story was engaging and I enjoyed the mystery.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not your usual cozy

I really liked this story and its very believable characters. Persephone doesn't find what she thought she would on her "retreat" but, along the way, she ends up with something re-energizing in a different way.

There's the matter of a couple of deaths, too. See if you can figure it out before Persephone does!

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel 2-stars is generous but 1.5 seems a bit too low so 1.75 stars? When I get the daily book deal email from Book Bub and one catches my attention, I first see if it's part of a series and if so, which book in the series it is, and what it's rated on Goodreads. Depending on where the rating lands, I may read a couple of reviews to see if there is a theme among the complaints and if so, is it something that annoys me too or can I live with it. As this book is the first in a series and has a 4-star rating, I figured it was a safe bet.

Boy, was I wrong. I compared the last book I reviewed to a train wreck but this one made me want to read the second book in that series. The plot was fine - it's a cozy mystery that follows the cozy formula: woman's minding her own business, someone everyone has motive to kill dies, woman bests law enforcement and solves murder. In this case, a recently divorced, 50-year old therapist has booked a cottage in a charming Maine town so she can work on herself but when the man in the neighboring cottage is found dead, she's the main suspect and refuses the support of her FBI agent ex-husband, preferring to figure out who the real killer is herself.

For a therapist, she sure is whiny and judgmental! For having been the one to initiate her divorce, she also places a lot of blame on her ex and their daughter. And again, for a therapist, it sure took quite some time for her to realize her "annoying" neighbor was suffering from dementia! That was seriously the most obvious thing in this entire book. This is definitely not a woman I would want anywhere near my mental health.

But the worst part was the writing structure. If I didn't know better, I would have thought a teenager wrote this book. I know we all use the occasional clause rather than complete sentences at times, but most of us don't make entire paragraphs out of them. Or use them in place of run on sentences. I don't know how many times I had to reread things only to realize they simply did not make sense. What made it even worse is there would be enough full sentences to get one in the grove and thinking "Yea! No more clauses!" and then Boom! they would start again. I finally stopped trying to reread and make sense of them.

On a positive note, the killer was probably the least obvious character in the book so that revelation I did enjoy. And the book was only 131 pages so the agony of wading through all the clauses was at least short-lived.

[Michelle Levigne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Persephone Pringle Cozy Mysteries: One

Our heroine needs some time away. As a counselor/therapist, she knows the value of a retreat to get organized and analyze, so she rents a cute little cottage in a shore community, and tries desperately to just get away from it all.

Her ex-husband won't leave her alone, her daughter won't leave her alone, and both of them think she needs a keeper. They might be right, since she stumbles into trouble with wacko neighbors on either side of the cottage, and realizes too late she's the newest point of acrimony in a community battle. Turns out the locals despise the tourists who come in and rent homes. According to the jerk who ran a stop sign and nearly hit her and then insisted it was her fault. And then the sheriff backs up the jerk. And then there's the rock through her window, telling her to go home. And then the dead body in the water, after she accused the same jerk of being the rock-thrower. And the fact that a lawn ornament in her rental cottage is the murder weapon. Which leads the jerk sheriff to accuse her of being the murderer.

It's kind of understandable why every time she makes up her mind what she's going to do to deal with the creeps and wackos, she ends up doing the opposite, despite knowing better. Especially when her FBI agent ex and their daughter keep trying to run her life from long distance. And then there's the anti-social cat that seems to love her, and the abused daughter who could be a killer. And then ...

Yeah, it's tangled and fast-moving and just when you want to take people and shake them until their eyeballs rattle, our heroine starts putting the pieces together. Whew!

[Mayhem-RW · Rating 4 out of 5]

Persephone Pringle is fifty, okay, thirty and holding for twenty years. She has an ex-husband, just recently made that way, and a daughter who is an adult and acts more mature than Persephone does at times. Persephone is on her way to four weeks of fun in the sun at the beach. Something her daughter calls a mid-life crisis, but she is doing this to find her new self. But when she reaches the four-way stop intersection to enter the town, she is almost hit by a very hostile and disagreeable man who blames her for nearly hitting him when he was the one who ran the stop sign. As angry as this made her and as much as her snarkiness wanted to come out and play, she used her counselor’s tone and gave him her card. Little did she know that he was her next-door neighbor. Not until she pulled up at her summer rental and saw him exit the house next door, and he was just as angry, if not angrier, and even more disagreeable. So much so the landlord of her rental called the local sheriff, who showed disdain for the man and her not being a local, but his attitude towards her would be all the worse after she finds a body floating right offshore.

The world-building seemed right on target, giving me images of the surroundings with fuzzy edges here and there. The character interaction, driven by the background information, is just like a small town where everybody knows everybody and is in everyone’s business.

This book is a good read to cozy up with for an afternoon. It has a strong female lead, a snooty fluffy cat, and a crazy lady next door, no relation to the cat. I give this cozy mystery four stars out of five stars.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed Patti Larsen's Mind Your Own Murder. In this cozy series, Persephone Pringle is a fifty year old holistic therapist. She lives in Wallace and is recently divorced. She decides to get away and drives to nearby Zephyr, Maine to stay in a beach house for a month. She is looking for serenity and solitude. Unfortunately, instead she finds undesirable neighbors on both sides of her! Then to make matters even worse, she finds her next door neighbor, Kendall Doiron, dead on the beach. Unable to escape this nightmare, she has been required to stay until she is told that she can leave. So she needs to find a way to convince the sheriff to let her go home. I liked the main character and the fact that she is middle aged. There was just enough mystery and secondary characters to keep me entertained. I look forward to more of Persephone's adventures.

[Penelope · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ll admit, I had a bit of bias when I started and the sleuth came off as very age-obsessed and calling her daughter a prude. It just rubbed me wrong a 50 year old acting that way. That is a personal bias because women like that in real life rub me wrong. But, I overlooked it. By Chapter 5, I tapped out. The murder still hadn’t happened (I skimmed ahead to see that it didn’t happen until mid way into Chapter 7). Way to slow of a build up to the murder and it felt more like her nosiness would be the biggest factor in her involvement, instead of actually being a organic reason.

The Sleuth doesn’t come off as relatable or even likable. For what I consider a short(er) read, I expect the action to happen quicker in the book, with the meat and potatoes of the story being the sleuthing.

DNF - Would not recommend

[Dirk Lapere · Rating 2 out of 5]

About the only good thing I can say about this book is that it is short.
The writing is awful. It is like a 10-year old who is telling a story to a computer that puts all the words to paper ... and no editing afterwards. Incomplete sentences. Sentences without a verb, without a subject. I often had to reread the sentence 2-3 times to make sense to it. Maybe the author thought this was "high art", but to me it was very painful. I only got through it by skim reading anything that was not dialogue.
I finished it because I wanted to know the ending. I wonder why I bothered. The culprit of the story shows up quickly enough, gives a confusing explanation why he is doing what he is doing, and of course, once he is done with that, he botches up the liquidation of his witness ... thanks to a stray cat. Boy, no wonder this book was a freebie on Amazon.

[EJ Amata · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was generally okay. The plot was genuinely very good, the result of the story surprised me - however happened very quickly at the end of the book (there was lots of relatively useless information before this). What was disappointing was the writing. Generally this book isn’t written very well, it’s over-descriptive and uses ageist and fatphobic language at times (generally unnecessary and ruins the story). Also the use of language about mental illness is really unpleasant and outdated - the way that the author writes about the characters is offensive, and especially out of touch given the main character is supposed to be a therapist (I really hope real therapists don’t think in this way).

[Nancy Garbe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Persephone Pringle is a delightful, unorthodox, middle aged, divorced, wholistic therapist who is looking forward to four weeks of rest and relaxation in a small village in Maine. As we know, however, there can be no “R and R” for a sleuth and Persephone finds herself in the middle of a murder - the lead suspect in fact - before the first full day has passed. Additional possible suspects include the daughter of the deceased and a woman suffering with Alzheimer’s disease and there is even another possible murder!

I received a free copy of this book for my honest voluntary review. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story and am looking forward to more of this series!

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay story. Persephone tries to find a murderer only because she is considered the prime suspect by the sheriff. It didn't make any sense why she was considered a suspect, especially since the dead man was hated by practically everybody. The clue that convinced Persephone who the murderer was didn't add up, IMO, as it also implicated other people as well. How the murderer knew that clue would let her figure it out is also a mystery to me. I did like the way Persephone was determined to examine her own flaws and learn to be better. The author's writing style was off-putting to me. She uses incomplete sentences way too often.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind Your Own Murder

Patti Larsen has written us cozey mystery murder readers a charming but emotional intriguing mystery, with colorful and some entaganising characters that draw you into the small town seaside feuding residents and giving hope for a passive and calming conclusion knowing there was murder to come .But still hoping our heroine would bring a compassionate and healing outcome for those wounded souls unexpectantely surrounding her before she herself becomes the next victim. There is always hope. Acquire " Mind Your Own Murder " for hours of intriguing and passionate entertainment Kat

[Pat M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Murder mystery with a woman of a certain age, divorced, with a daughter in her early twenties, moves away from home to start a new life. Persephone is a life coach, helping people figure out what stage of life they are in, what they need to be doing to have a satisfying life and how to map out how to get there. She ends up renting a cottage for a couple weeks and finds the neighbors could be candidates for her help in figuring out where they want their lives to go. In the story, people get murdered with Persephone following the clues to find out where the bad guys are, and solving the murders. My first time reading this author and hope to read more written by her.

[Lee Rush · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute cozy for the start of the year.

I’ve had this book on my kindle for ages and the time just felt right to embark on the adventure. I was not disappointed.

Larsen has a gift for moving a story forward, without feeling rushed or cheated. Her characters seem to flow effortlessly from her imagination and are instantly likeable.

My only disappointment was that her lead character so quickly dismissed what was written as a lovely Maine town. I would have loved to see Persephone fall a bit in love with the town before so quickly being so against it.

A quick and fun read, and one of a good-sized series to keep your favorite character around a bit longer.

[Kestrelmorn Geiger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable book and a great beginning to a series. The protagonist is a newly divorced mid-life woman with a lot of spunk and a great attitude. She's gone to a little resort town in Maine for a month of 'ME' time to reset herself, much to the chagrin of her daughter, Calliope, and her overprotective ex, FBI Agent, Trent. Things go wrong, almost immediately. You'll have to read the book for the rest because I don't believe in spoilers. But she figures out who she needs to be now, even if it almost kills her.

[Brenda Hancock · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the story line, but had difficulty adjusting to the stream-of-consciousness style of writing with incomplete sentences making me have to reread groups of words to figure out what the character was saying. After a bit, I finally figured out how to read the story and it began to flow more smoothly, but it was a bit of an adjustment. Also seemed that the main character was as adept as Sherlock Holmes at figuring out who the murderer was with apparently few clues known to the reader. Glad it all ended well.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing start to a series with a MC in transition from a safe albeit rather stifling life to valuing her own choices instead of just deferring to the needs of others. While there is tragedy (especially in some of the relationships that are gratingly dysfunctional) there also is an emphasis on pushing through difficulties to embrace the possibility of self-determination.

Although it was my pleasure to receive this free novel from the author, it was completely my choice to share my honest review.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just okay. The mystery was pretty predictable. There weren’t a lot of twists and turns. Up until the end there wasn’t a lot of excitement. It was just pretty blah compared to other cozy mysteries I read.

Also the main character rubbed me off the wrong way from word one. I get that was finding herself and starting over after her divorce, but she had a pretty terrible attitude. She came off very snarky. I just didn’t like her.

The best part was Belladonna, the cat. She was the star of the show. She was cute and adorable. She had a sassy little attitude. I just loved her so much.

[Natelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Persephone Pringle plans a holiday to celebrate her diverse and clear her mind as she finds her new purpose. Instead she finds quirky neighbors and murder. Worse than that, she becomes the prime suspect. That prompts her to the investigate. But will she survive her search for the killer?

The premise of this book fits squarely in the cozy mystery genre. A cat even makes an appearance. The writing didn’t flow very well though, since it wove in and out of Persephone’s thoughts leaving the reader to interpret her meaning.

[monacia williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life begins at 50 (not that I am going to admit I am 50).

It is quirky, funny at times with a lead character b who refuses to conform to stereotypes. I must admit though, that I found Presephone's treatment of those who invaded her space jarring with her counselor career. There were not that many characters in the book so it was not surprising when one was identified as the killer. The reason for attacking Persephone was very flimsy even in a cozy mystery. It did not tie in with the rest of the story which started out so well.
A very easy read. Go ahead and enjoy.

[Lee Brothers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author is so much fun, I enjoy reading her books so I was really hoping that this new series would be as good or better than some of her other series. And I am very glad to say that I really like this first book. It took me on a journey that I would like to go on myself because I love vacations at the ocean and the beach and this just sounded so wonderful. You never know who you're gonna meet or what kind of problems you're gonna run into and it's really sad when it's murder. The reveal was very well done. And I love BellaDonna!!!

[Avid · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice, easy, laid-back book for a relaxing weekend. It's not one for those looking for a more serious murder plot or true crime book. This is very fitting to the title.

A recently divorced shrink decides she needs to find some needed relaxing and restart her independence. In doing so, she rents a place on the beach in a very small town deep in deadly issues. Instantly, even before arriving at the place, she begins to realize her presence is unwelcome.

However, determined not to let anything or anyone ruin her getaway, she ventures on. ... Let the story begin. 🙃

Cute
📚📚📚

[Wei Jiun · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utterly unlikeable and mean spirited protagonist in Persephone Pringle! She construes the kindness of others as acts of aggression against her, believes she's the victim in every interaction, and thinks hateful thoughts about everybody else, even her family! And she's a therapist by profession?! She complains all the time about every non-issue, gives the impression of being privileged and entitled. I thought the book was setting up a twist where by Persephone was the murderer, or the person being being murdered. Good that it's a short book, as the mystery is neither compelling or cosy.