This is the first book in a new series called Island Sisters Mysteries by Hannah Dennison who’s also the author of the Honeychurch Hall series and another one called Vicky Hall. I’d read the first book in the Honeychurch series, so I knew I’d enjoy this book. But I actually enjoyed it even more than I would have thought. The setting on the island and rock was so perfect, and I thought it sounded so cool to take a sea tractor up to the hotel when the tide was in too high to walk over.
I just had to look up some images of sea tractors and found that there’s a Burgh Island that uses them for transporting guests across. The image I used above was found under Google images > Labeled for Reuse > courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. I’m not sure why I’m so fascinated by this vehicle, but I’m pretty sure if I was the traveling type, Burgh Island might be going on my bucket list.
Since I’m not a fan of traveling (only armchair lol), I won’t ever be visiting physically, but it was a lot of fun to look at the Burgh Island Hotel images when I Googled them. I can’t help but think that this hotel might have been an inspiration for the Tregarrick Rock Hotel in the book. I read an ARC of the book, so obviously there weren’t any acknowledgements or notes from the author, but I’d really be curious to find out. Ok, that’s the extent of my research, but it helped me enjoy this book even more!
My Goodreads review:
Death at High Tide by Hannah Dennison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was a great armchair vacation to places I’d never be traveling (mainly because even in normal times, I’m not a travel fan). It even inspired me to look up sea tractors, the vehicle that hauled Margot and Evie across to the hotel on Tregarrick Rock.
There were so many different characters, and I got that really cool Agatha Christie type of vibe reading the book. The setting was kind of eerie at times, and everyone seemed to have secrets they were keeping–or someone knew they were keeping and were being blackmailed for said secrets. Kind of a crazy place for Evie who had just lost her husband, but Margot seemed to fit right in. She was already used to crazy Hollywood, so the island and dealing with its inhabitants didn’t take a whole lot of effort on her part. Margot and police chief Patty were two of my favorite characters. Patty had a wicked sense of humor, but overall, she was good at her job.
I had a person in mind as the killer at a sort of early stage, and I was happy to find out that I was right. Reading and getting thrown off course by the red herrings is always fun though, so I wasn’t too concerned if I didn’t guess right. I had such a good time reading this that I didn’t want it to end, and now I’m really excited to read the next book whenever it comes out.
I voluntarily read and reviewed a copy of this book provided by the publisher via NetGalley, and my opinions are my own.
Cuddle Up With a Cozy Mystery 