Synopsis:
Janie Austen is a struggling writer who gets hired to help write a stage play based on a popular zombie movie. While she is working one of the actresses is murdered and she has to help discover who done it.

Rating:
3/5 Stars

I have read every book in the Janie Austen mystery series and overall I really enjoy the humor and the characters in the stories. Unfortunately, sometimes the mysteries let me down and I felt like that was the case with this book.

One of my favorite characters in the series is Janie's cat Prozac and this book had a lot of great Prozac in it. In this particular book there is a subplot about Janie trying to help Prozac get the stimulation and exercise she needs by getting her a leash and zany antics ensue from that and I was totally there for it.

There is also a subplot where Janie gets to go to a bachelor auction and she accidentally bids on a date. That was a fun subplot but one of the issues I have with this series that I felt was really highlighted by this subplot is that Janie doesn't really have much change or growth throughout the series. She is at a similar place in her personal and professional life from book1 to the current book. You can pick up any book in the series and not much will have changed for Janie. I think on one hand that makes this series super accessible because every book is an entry point. However, as a long term reader of the series I think I would like to see Janie's life changing and improving with relationships that aren't just one offs in the series and meaningful successes in her career. This was another book where Janie really doesn't change from start to finish. If you have never read this series I think you could easily pick up this book and enjoy it without feeling like you were missing any character story.

As for the mystery itself, I thought many characters had strong motives to want to murder the victim but at the reveal I felt like the actual killer had a fairly flimsy motive compared to all the other potential suspects. I also thought that a lot of belief had to be suspended for so many people to have a past with the woman and also end up involved in the play she was in. I live in a small town and doubt I could cast a play with such interconnected people even taking everyone from a small town let alone LA where the book takes place.

This was a fun read but not a very satisfying mystery. ( )

This book is a hoot. Mystery and humor vie for the front seat - both are equally entertaining. Jaine gets tapped to punch up a dismal script for a play based on a bad TV show. The producer/director/leading man won the lottery and now gets to live his dream. Unfortunately, one of the cast members doesn’t. Jaine sets out to find the killer, but there are so many suspects it’s hard to narrow down the playing field. The star of this cozy is Prozac the cat who steals every scene she is in. Well written with delightfully quirky characters, this mystery is fun from beginning to end. ( )

Things are looking up for Jaine Austen...sort of. She has been hired to do revisions on a really awful play, I Married A Zombie, based on an equally awful and thankfully quickly cancelled TV show by the same name (Jaine had solved the murder of the star of the show in a past book). As bad as the play is, the woman hired as lead actor somehow manages to make it worse. She has no discernible acting skills beyond the ability to twist the director/producer around her little finger and she uses this to make constant demands, one of which is that she is allowed time every rehearsal for her favourite smoothie. No surprise to anyone when she is murdered by said smoothie. The only problem is who dunnit and a whole cast of suspects who seem to have been more than willing to play the role of murderer.

Death by Smoothie is the nineteenth in A Jaine Austen Mystery series and it is a fast, fun, and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny cozy mystery and I'd like to thank Netgalley and Kensington Books for the opportunity to read it in exchange for an honest review. There's plenty of twists and turns and it kept me guessing. But I'll admit the best part of the novel for me were the antics of her cat Prozac and the emails of her parents. Loved it! ( )