Autumn has arrived on the shores of Lake Michigan, but Marlee Jacob, proprietor of The Berry Basket, is feeling a chill for other reasons …

With the Harvest Health Fair in full swing, Marlee makes sure to stock up on elderberry products for cold and flu season. But this year there's also a run on mulberry when an eccentric customer wants to use the dried berries to ward off evil forces. True, it's almost Halloween, but something else seems to be spooking Leticia the Lake Lady, Oriole Point's oddest resident. She believes someone plans to kill her—and the ghost. Only mulberries can protect them. Marlee doesn't take her fears seriously until a man named Felix Bonaventure arrives in the village, asking questions about a mysterious woman.

The next day, Marlee finds Bonaventure dead on Leticia's property—shot through the heart with an arrow made of mulberry wood. And Leticia has disappeared. Marlee soon learns the Lake Lady has a deadly past that is connected to the famous Sable family who are in town for the health fair. A bunch of clues start to come together—and figuring out what's going on puts Marlee in a real jam…

This was a very fast read for me. Everything moved very quickly within the plot and the murderer was caught and confessed much faster than I expected.

*Book received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review* ( )

It's almost Halloween in Oriole Point, MI and the town is gearing up for its Haunted Halloween Harvest Health Fair. Although Marlee Jacob thinks combining Halloween with a health fair is a bit weird, she's ready for the influx of tourists to the town. The leaves have turned and the weather is forecast to be perfect. The list of activities, speakers and other health-related workshops is outstanding, including a nationally recognized diet guru. Things start getting a bit strange when a local eccentric approaches Marlee asking for mulberries. Lots and lots of mulberries. Out of season. To protect her from danger. It gets even stranger when they find the dead, murdered body of a stranger that came to town asking questions. The body has an arrow sticking in it. And in the countdown to Halloween, the body count will be going up....

What a fun, Halloween theme cozy! This is the first book from the Berry Basket series that I've read, and it makes me want to backtrack and read the rest! The characters are quirky, the background Halloween theme is fun, and the mystery is interesting! Lots of suspects, hidden secrets, and twists. Nicely done! And...at the end of the book....berry recipes, including some Halloween treats.

The front cover art is cute. It's what first caught my eye and made me want to read this book. Cozy mysteries always have the best covers!

Mulberry Mischief is the fourth book in the Berry Basket series. I was easily able to read and enjoy this book without first reading the other three books. But I am going to go back and read the first three books. This story was a fun read!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Kensington via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**
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Marlee Jacobs owns The Berry Basket, a shop in town that deals with all things having to do with berries, including bakery items which are created by her pastry chef, Theo. She's gearing up for the Harvest Health Fair -- organized by the mayor's wife Piper, who's also asked Marlee to give a speech at the fair about the health benefits of her berries. But more important, Piper has managed to snag the famous Sable family to give talks, who have a line of books and health items that have created an empire.

But then Marlee gets a strange visit from a local eccentric - Leticia the Lake Lady. She lives in the woods and rarely ventures out this far, but insists on meeting Marlee by the lighthouse. What she asks her seems odd - she wants Marlee to get her as many mulberries as she can to ward off the evil of the 'shadow people', telling her that she and the ghost are in danger. Even though Marlee doesn't understand, she agrees. But then a man enters her shop looking for Ellen Mulberry and tells her that his name is Felix Bonaventure. While Marlee isn't sure that Ellen and Leticia are the same woman, she wants to know. And when she delivers the berries to Leticia's house the next day she doesn't find Leticia, but she does find Felix...shot through the heart with a mulberry arrow.

Now Marlee needs to find Leticia and see if she killed Felix; but when she starts looking for answers, she only finds more questions. One that lead to a long-ago murder that may have to do with Leticia, and now that she's missing, Marlee finds herself in the middle of another murder investigation, and she might not come out alive from this one...

This is the fourth book in the series and is a very good one. Although a little more than a third way through the book I knew who the murderer was and, for the most part, the reason why (I read a lot of mysteries); it was still interesting to watch Marlee go through the stages of trying to figure everything out with a little help from her friends Andrew and Dean, brothers who work for her.

When Marlee finds out the connection she's warned away by more than one person, but when she discovers that an injustice was done, she knows that she needs to set things right, even if it causes her problems. But she doesn't realize what exactly she's walked into and when she starts to put it together she's warned away.

What I did like about the book this time is that Piper, who's normally concerned with only herself and what she thinks is best for the town, shows that she cares about Marlee in a strange twist later on in the story. It makes her more likable as a person, and what she did was a very nice thing to do. As for the other characters, in the same scene they also show that they care about Marlee, and it brings them all closer together. It was probably one of the best scenes in the book.

When the murderer was discovered, there was, of course, the scene where Marlee was in danger, but this time she was in a very heavy Halloween costume, so that could have caused problems for her, but in the end everything came out right even if there was sadness along the way. I look forward to the next in the series. Recommended. ( )

I am so happy! I read a cozy where I didn’t know the killer until the end. It doesn’t happen too often any more, so thank you Sharon Farrow, for writing a cozy that kept me guessing.

The way Farrow accomplished this was by having so many horrible people that it could have been any number of them. But she wrote those horrible people so well I kept getting wowed by how diabolical she could make her characters. Besides writing evil characters, Farrow does a wonderful job developing characters that I could be friends with and want to know more about. If I lived in this charming Michigan town, I would be constantly visiting Marlee’s shop and bouncing ideas off of her in ways to incorporate herbs with her berries.

And since Michigan is right next to Wisconsin, so many descriptions of not only the townspeople, but the town itself, reminded me of places I’ve lived and visited and people I know and have known. It was as if Farrow was writing about parts of my life… without the murder, of course.

I also enjoyed all of Farrow’s literary references when it came to people’s names, and her pop culture nods when it came to things like the dogs being named Willow, Buffy, and Xander. It just added another layer to Mulberry Mischief that I found fun, and endeared me even more to the book.

Although this is the first book I’ve read in the Berry Basket Mystery series, I can see myself reading future books, and maybe even starting the series from the beginning, which I don’t often do. If you haven’t read any of this series yet, you may want to start with the first book, Dying for Strawberries. ( )

Mulberry Mischief by Sharon Farrow is the fourth novel in A Berry Basket Mystery series. It can be read as a standalone since Marlee’s background is provided along with references to the last three cases. Marlee Jacob delivers mulberries to the home of Leticia the Lake Lady and finds a man dead with a mulberry arrow through the heart. Leticia has disappeared and becomes the police’s prime suspect. Marlee knows that Leticia thought someone was out to harm her. She wants to make sure Leticia is safe plus find the killer. Mulberry Mischief has a delightful cast of characters from kindhearted Marlee to fashionista Andrew to Old Man Bowman who is fascinated with Big Foot. Leticia is an off-beat character with her unusual ideas and flaming orange hair. Oriole Point is having a Haunted Halloween Harvest Health Fair (try saying that three times fast). Piper Lyall-Pierce, the coordinator, wants to convince people to eat less candy after her husband ate a whole bag of Twizzlers last Halloween (I find licorice is like potato chips, you cannot eat just one plus they are fat free). I did find Mulberry Mischief to be a slow starter, but the pace soon picks up. The mystery was interesting with misdirection, multiple suspects and clever clues. I like that we get a complete wrap up at the end. You have to love a criminal who spills his guts. I was tickled by the names of Aunt Vicki’s Doberman Pinschers. They are Buffy, Willow and Xander. I think it is wonderful that she manages an animal rescue that captures feral cats and spays them. I liked the inclusion of mulberry folklore and the health benefits of mulberries. The ending was humorous. Mulberry Mischief is an upbeat cozy mystery with Halloween hijinks, a frisky feline, mulberry mania, a costumed killer, and a booming bell. ( )