Review: Murder at Gulls Nest

Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2.5 stars DNF (I read 35% of this book)

The protagonist, who had been a Nun, is looking for another Nun (past Nun?) at the Gulls Nest, a boarding house for those who seem to be down on their luck. It is a nasty place (in my opinion) with horrible food and rules that boggle the mind. Missing people abound, and at least one murder occurs during the part that I read.

The characters are annoyingly cloying on one hand, and on the other, they and especially Nora seem to be nagging shrews.

The slang of the time (1954) was incomprehensible to me, and I nearly wore my poor Kindle down looking up things like "scrag-neck stew" and "stewed tea".

I just finally had to give up.

*ARC provided by the publisher Atria Books, the author, and ATTL/Edelweiss.


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Description: " From Jess Kidd, the bestselling author of Things in Jars who “is so good it isn’t fair” (Erika Swyler, nationally bestselling author), the first in a cozy mystery series about a former nun who searches for answers in a small seaside town after her pen pal mysteriously disappears.

I believe every one of us at Gulls Nest is concealing some kind of secret.

1954: When her former novice’s dependable letters stop, Nora Breen asks to be released from her vows. Haunted by a line in Frieda’s letter, Nora arrives at Gulls Nest, a charming hotel in Gore-on-Sea in Kent.

A seaside town, a place of fresh air and relaxed constraints, is the perfect place for a new start. Nora hides her identity and pries into the lives of her fellow guests. But when a series of bizarre murders rattles the occupants of Gulls Nest it’s time to ask if a dark past can ever really be left behind."