I liked it!

I enjoy this sweet group of lovely female characters and their endeavors! One character became a bit annoying, but the annoyance had a purpose and that’s ok. This book is a nice, easy listen.

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A Delightful Trip to Scotland!

The ladies of Molly MacRae's Highland Book Shoppe series are celebrating their 4- month anniversary as owners and proprietors of Yon Bonnie Books, with its accompanying Cakes and Tales tea room and B&B when the town of Inversgail welcomes its most famous native citizen, the reclusive author Daphne Woods, for a three- month visit in Scones and Scoundrels. But Daphne manages to upset just about everyone in the village before her first week is out.

The night that Daphne arrives, an American hiker gets murdered, and the quartet learns that he spent the night in their B&B four nights earlier. Somehow Daphne has heard that the women solved a murder when they first moved to Inversgail, and she gets it into her head that the women must be investigating the death, and she wants in on the case. Soon the women hear that Daphne has been spreading the word that the five have formed a partnership and are narrowing in on the identity of the murderer. Then, the night after Daphne's book signing, Janet hears frantic barking coming from the house next door, where Daphne has been staying. The neighborhood converges, along with Norman Hobbes, the local constable, on the house, only for Norman to discover the body of Daphne inside.

With two murders, the town becomes aroused, and the bookshop ladies realize that Daphne's comments about solving the murder could put them at risk from a murderer afraid they are ready to reveal the shooting. So they start to ask questions and post them in a document in the cloud that each can access. Where so many books can get tedious with characters' musings over the possibilities of the crime, the way this book has all four women challenging each other to come up with better questions prevents this boredom from occurring. In fact, the questions seem more important than the answers.

This book gripped me from the start and didn't let me go until the last second was over. I loved the fun and creative plot that kept me drawn to the book. It had so many intricate threads that get woven together so adroitly like a piece of tartan. However, unless you are paying attention, you won't notice the complexity because the pieces blend so effectively. The conclusion came as a surprise to me and left me with a smile on my face, just what a conclusion should do!

I really love the characters in this book. The four partners in the bookshop, tea room, and bed and breakfast seem to sub in and out for each other seamlessly, showing they truly have become a real team. In addition, the secondary characters have a lot of personality too, and this really adds to the fun of the book. I especially love the bookshop's assistant, Rab, with his dog, Ranger. When they enter the shop, Ranger goes straight to the fireplace and waits patiently for Rab to put a towel over one of the chairs before jumping up on it to relax while Rab works.

Another feature I really enjoy about this series is the cultural flavor. The book is filled with Gaelic terms, but it is done in such a way that we get a sense of their meaning. We also see the rain in Scotland as the women discuss the list they have made of different Gaelic terms for different styles of rain. We also get a sense of the insularity of Inversgail, where a lot of people do not care for "incomers," but whether this insularity is a Scottish phenomenon or an issue related to Inversgail's being a small village is not clear.

I thoroughly loved the performance of Lucy Paterson in the audio edition. She voices the many accents, whether of Americans, a Londoner, a Nepali, and the Scottish, very ably. Her pacing and vocal expressions contribute strongly to the enjoyment of this book.

I really loved listening to Scones and Scoundrels. This book transported me to Scotland and away from the painful realities of life, giving me a lot of pleasure in the process. I highly recommend the book, but I do recommend listening to Plaid and Plagiarism first in order to meet the owners of the book shop and their neighbors. I give this book five stars!

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5 people found this helpful

Need an editor...last 10min chopped

I liked the book and the narrator but there were two bothersome items. 1. Whoever edited must have been asleep during the last 10 minutes. You finally reach the climatic part of the book and the track keeps jumping...kind of wrecked the ending for me. 2. Hearing "Janet said," "Ian said," " Summer said," so the listener can distinguish who is speaking was necessary, especially with all the women characters, but the short sentences with "so and so said" repeated several sentences in a row was irritating....repetitive and in monotone for the most part. I would hesitate to buy another book from this recording studio mainly because of the skipping.

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5 people found this helpful

Pretty good

This is a pretty good story with well developed characters but the pacing is a bit slow in the middle then picks up at the end

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3 people found this helpful

Scrumptiously good

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I love the story as a whole, but the voices and accents done for the reading made it easy to believe they were indeed in Scotland. The story was cleverly crafted to keep you on the edge of your seat and confused as to who really had "Done It". This is one of those you will find hard to put down, or in the case if an audiobook...Impossible to stop listening to until you reach the end. LOVED IT!

What other book might you compare Scones and Scoundrels to and why?

I don't compare to other books.

What about Lucy Paterson’s performance did you like?

She did the voices very well and convincingly. The added accents really helped to make the characters culture come alive.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It kept me on my toes.

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3 people found this helpful

Anxious for the next book

Looking forward to the next book in the series as the first two were wonderful

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1 person found this helpful

Don’t bother

I kept waiting for something to happen in this book—it took forever to get moving. The only thing that kept me going was fascination with Daphne’s behavior. This book definitely needs an editor, who could have chopped off most of the first half of the book.

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Love this author's books

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. It's a real escape into another world.

What did you like best about this story?

This book really immerses the reader in life in a small Scottish town.

What about Lucy Paterson’s performance did you like?

The narrator was excellent. She moved seamlessly between Midwestern and Scottish accents, not to mention male and female characters.

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1 person found this helpful

Annoying narrator

Lucy Patterson’s voice for Janet was so irritating. Her attempt to voice a woman from the Midwest was a weird combination of a southern drawl and stereotypical Appalachian Hillbilly. Everytime she attempted it I wanted to scream

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Why didn't I read the reviews before buying?!

Very thin story and weak characters. I must be a sucker for the word "scones" in the title, and a sale price. Never made it past Chapter 2.

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2 people found this helpful