Mumbo Gumbo Murder New Orleans's style

This latest installment in Laura Child's scrapbooking series finds Carmela Bertrand and Ava looking to solve the murder of Carmela's friend Devon.  All the while, perturbing Carmela's fiance, Detective Edgar Babcock. The book is full of plenty of intrigue and New Orleans funk and flair.  It is always enjoyable to see what crazy antics the 2 friends find themselves embroiled in each time.  This book has everything from crafting to matchmaking and all sorts of other activities in between all while trying to solve the murder.  The story twists and turns around Carmela's life and we see how different coincidences and moments of chance help her to solve the mysteries.

I always love reading about the different crafts Carmela designs and the different relationships with the recurring characters.  We get quick glimpses of Shamus, the dogs, and his sister Glory.   Again we find ourselves at a house party in the Garden District and viewing parades in the French Quarter. The Memory Mine regulars pop in, including Gabby and Baby.

An enjoyable, light read with a surprise ending.  I only had a fleeting bit of suspicion as to who the guilty party was in the murder.  The underlying premise of the crime made for an interesting twist to the story.   Grab this book if you want to experience a little French Creole charm while trying to figure out whodunit.


Mumbo Gumbo Murder by Laura Childs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is always fun to read the Laura Childs' scrapbooking series. These books cover both my interests, mysteries and scrapbooking so they don't come out fast enough for my reading pleasure. This series is set in the French Quarter in New Orleans and as such has lots of the aspects one associates with the Big Easy. There are parades, fancy dining, and plenty of drinking in the book. There are nods to the city's links with the mystical and the dead as well as the antiques trade so prevalent there. The antiques business is at the center of this particular installment when Carmela Bertrand and her friend Ava stumble upon the body of their friend Devon in his antique shop while watching a parade as part of the city's legendary Jazz Fest. The story of their amateur sleuthing to solve Devon's murder is intertwined with stories of their everyday lives, including the scrapbook store, Memory Mine, Carmela owns. There are plenty of visits from ex-beaus as well as glimpses of her current relationship with fiance, Detective Edgar Babcock. All in all the story is well paced and enjoyable with enough suspense to keep the reader engaged. I recommend this book if you like cozy mysteries and fun quirky characters.


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Challenge Prompts

The Challenge Prompts I will use this for are:

1. Library Love  #LibraryLoveChallenge -  Book #25
2. Literary Escapes-  LA
3. Finishing the Series-  #FinishingTheSeries2020   New Orleans Scrapbooking Series #16
4. Cravings for a Cozy and Cloak and  Dagger #CloakDaggerChal : Book  #17
5. Cruising through cozies -  craft #2
6. Calendar of Crime-  #CalendarOfCrime2020  
7. Medical Examiner-  2 Toe Tag 
8. Six Shooter-  2nd shot for Laura Childs
9. Color Coded:  #4 Green
10. Wizarding World Tour  
• Castelobruxo: Green dust jacket; 
11. 52 Books in 52 weeks  #2 A Hardcover

Starting to sort the challenges

Right now I am trying to get myself all set up for the different challenges I want to try in 2020.  This means I have listed all the prompts to select books from into a separate tab for each challenge.  I have then brainstormed ideas and cross referenced where a book can count for more than 1 challenge.  I don't realistically see myself having the time to read unique books for each challenge although there are readers out there who want cross utilize a title for different challenges.  I think half the fun for me is the setup and the research and planning.

Some of these challenges require a monthly commitment whereas others are a less demanding approach.

My plans for this year are:

Popsugar Reading Challenge

Around the Year in 52 Books on Goodreads

52 books in 52 weeks on mommymannegren 

A to Z challenge on gingermomandcompany

A color based challenge on myreadersblock

Girlxoxo.com is hosting several that interested me.  They also have a listing of book challenges to reference.

•  A monthly book award challenge

• A monthly motif and

• A monthly keyword challenge

There are several challenges based on genre of the books.  I am using the prompts in the 52 week challenges to address many of these categories

• For my love of mysteries I found  Calendar of Crime on myreadersblock

• Memoir lovers can find a challenge on jannghi.blogspot.com

• Historical Non Fiction is being hosted over at hiberantors library 

Several of the challenges just involve a tally of how many books you finish falling into the category.

The two I want to track are:

Mount TBR on Goodreads- to track how many books you read that you already own physical or ebook.  You set a goal of how many on your list you want to tackle.  If you reach that mountain top you can scale something higher.

Like Mount TBR, Craving for a cozy is about tracking how many cozies you read.  I found this challenge on www.escapewithdollycas.com

Since I have bitten off so many challenges I decided it was only fitting that I join a challenge tracking how many challenges you are doing.   I found this at reading challenge addict.  

Stay tuned over the next few posts for descriptions of the individual challenges to see if you might be interested in joining in.