Marshmallow reviews Murder by Milkshake: A Sweet Dreams Mystery by Elizabeth Maria Naranjo

Today Marshmallow reviews a brand new book, Murder by Milkshake: A Sweet Dreams Mystery , written by Elizabeth Maria Naranjo and published in 2024.

The book bunnies are delighted to be reviewing this book as part of a Blog Tour for Murder by Milkshake organized by WOW! Women On Writing.

Marshmallow’s Quick Take: If you like mystery books about unexpected detectives and murders, then this is the book for you!

Marshmallow’s Summary (with Spoilers): Genevieve Winterland’s passion is bringing joy to others through her job working at her father’s Sweet Dreams Ice Cream Parlour in Pinewood, Arizona. As a high school senior approaching graduation, she already knows that she wants to spend her life as a business owner (getting a business degree through online courses), continuing the shop her father created. However, her father doesn’t want her to make any hasty decisions, especially since he worries he has influenced them too much. Wishing that she explores the world outside of Pinewood, he convinces her to apply to colleges that require her to leave her hometown. But before any of this can come to fruition, there is plenty of learning to do before graduation.

At school (before Genevieve’s shift starts), drama about a teaching position unfolds. The economy teacher Mr. Garcia is fired for violence against a student, and popular substitute teacher Miss Love is hired to fill in. However (through methods of borderline espionage), Genevieve learns that Miss Love is receiving death threats. Soon after this discovery, Miss Love goes missing and is replaced by the extremely unpopular substitute, Ms. Pierce. Ms. Pierce says a couple suspicious things that raise Genevieve’s interest, and after some investigation, Genevieve becomes convinced that Ms. Pierce must have been the one sending the death threats.

Meanwhile, a string of robberies have been shaking Pinewood residents’ sense of security and safety in this small town. So to protect Genevieve while she works, her father hires a second worker during her shift. This worker, Tyler, is moody, quick to anger, and clearly doesn’t want to work at Sweet Dreams. After a bizarre reaction to a comment, Tyler becomes a object of suspicion for Genevieve. 

With her best friend Brandon (whose family owns the Hidden Treasures Bookshop across the street from Sweet Dreams) and Butterscotch (an abandoned dog whom Brandon’s family has temporarily taken in), Genevieve is determined to find out why and where Miss Love is and why Ms. Pierce is (supposedly) sending the death threats. However, soon a shocking death shakes up her deconstruction of the whole mystery and the town of Pinewood. Genevieve must uncover the truth before it’s too late. (Dun dun dun!!!)

Marshmallow’s Review: This book is difficult to place in terms of mystery genre. Some might say it is a cozy mystery (which I just learned is a genre), and it does have most of the elements of that type. As far as I understand, this genre is supposed to be soft and sweet. However, I wouldn’t let this book’s soft and sweet setting fool you into thinking that it is not a serious mystery. There are a lot of twists and turns in this book and I definitely didn’t see most of them coming. The characters are all deeply developed, and the cutesy aspects of the book (which I really liked) should not make you underestimate the complexity of the full plot. I originally thought the murder would be pretty open-and-shut and was surprised that there was a ton of pages afterwards. However, the twists kept coming, and I am quite satisfied with the ending. While I originally may have thought this was a simpler story, the “softness” of the story setting and other aspects made the mystery much more startling and intriguing. I look forward to reading the next book of this series! 

Marshmallow’s Rating: 100%.