Holding Court by K.C. Held, and Knit One Kill Two by Maggie Sefton

YA Mystery


I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not effect my opinion of the book or my review itself.


Juliet Verity has the misfortune (in her opinion) of being from a family with psychic gifts. Her gift, or curse as she sees it, is spontaneously blurting out prophetic sentences that make absolutely no sense at the time.

When she takes a summer job at Tudor Times, nothing seems to be going right. Her costume could not be more unflattering, she has to spend every day close to her unattainable long-time crush, and she stumbles onto a dead body that is gone by the time she can bring anyone back to see it.

But Jules knows what she saw, and she's determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. And if some of her predictions come true along the way, and her unrequited love seems just that little bit more requited, all the better.

This is a read that is just plain fun. Juliet is a great character, full of sarcasm, wit, and The Princess Bride quotes. Her love interest is cute, and funny, and even his girlfriend, who in most books the readers would be supposed to hate, is sweet. The mystery is a good one, full of twists and turns, secret passageways, missing pearls, and scuttling around an old castle.

I hope Held brings Juliet and her friends back for another mystery. I would definitely read it.

Cozy Mystery

In this genre cozy mystery, the main theme is knitting, in particular an amazing little knitting shop located right by the protagonist's aunt's house. 

Kelly Flynn has inherited her beloved Aunt Helen's home, and is immediately swept out of her stressful city life and into the relaxing, loving small town life she remembers from her childhood. She makes friends, and even begins to knit, but her aunt's murder continues to haunt her. 

Kelly believes her aunt wasn't killed by an interrupted intruder, but a cold-blooded killer.

With the help of her new friends, and a possible love interest, Kelly sets out to bring her aunt's killer to justice.

I love cozy mysteries, and this was an especially enjoyable one. The knitting scenes, particularly the descriptions of the yarns, made me want to become a knitter. The characters are all well-developed, and the mystery has a lot of good red herrings and twists. The only thing really that was at all a negative was that Kelly's initial strong dislike of her now-possible love interest seemed really out of left field, and didn't make a lot of sense.