There is the annual Bluebonnet Festival in Cedar River, Texas and everyone is preparing for it except Mayor Bob, who has been found dead in his office holding a cup of coffee from the Sip & Spin shop.
A cozy mystery about 3 sisters who own and run the coffee and record shop. They are named after flowers like their mother and grandmother. The three are Juniper, called Juni; Magnolia, called Maggie; and Pansy called Tansy. The grandmother was Rose and the mother is Begonia. It was nice to have a cat in the book and he is Daffodil.
More than one mystery, the town is also searching for money stolen from a band robbery in 1956. People have areas to dig to find it.
I am from West Texas ad we do not have bluebonnets but when I lived in the Austin area we would see them. It is worth the trip to see them in bloom.
The book was good and I did enjoy it. I won a complimentart copy from Goodreads and want to thank the author and publisher.
A 4 star rating. Opinions are my own. ( )

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S A FATAL GROOVE ABOUT?
For the second time in the two months since she returned home, Juni Jessup finds a dead body. This time, she discovers the town's mayor dead at his desk during the town's biggest event—the Bluebonnet Festival.

It might just be all the True Crime podcasts Juni listens to and all the Police Procedural shows she watches, but Juni's pretty sure he was poisoned from the evidence she sees. Sadly, the other thing she notices is that the mayor's holding a coffee cup from her store in his hand—so it's pretty likely that the source of the poison was the coffee her sister had poured him not that long ago.

Faster than you can say, "Jessica Fletcher," Juni and her sisters are on the hunt for another killer to clear their store's name.

THE BANK ROBBERY
Decades ago, during this same festival, a bank in town was robbed while everyone was distracted by the festivities. The money has never been recovered, but it's widely believed that the robbers buried it before they encountered the police. It's now become a game during the festival for people to dig up a new plot of land each year to try to find the money. It's like an Easter Egg Hunt for grownups, with less candy and more manual labor involved.

It turns out that the mayor and a few other people in town had turned this robbery into a hobby bordering on obsession, and the sisters can't help but think that there's a connection between the lengths the mayor and others were going to in order to figure out where the money is and his killing.

TEXAS
I'm pretty sure it was present in Vinyl Resting Place, but I was too busy getting to know everyone to really notice—but one thing I really appreciated this time was the way that Juni mused about Texas—the geography, the beauty, the flora, and the culture. She really missed her home state while living in Oregon—more than she realized—and now that she's more settled back home, she can see all that she missed. Blacke does a great job of conveying that to the reader.

On the one hand, it's hard to think that J. Todd Scott, Samantha Jayne Allen, and Attica Locke are describing the same state as Blacke is—and part of that has to do with the varied parts of the large state they're describing, sure. But most of it has to do with the tone of their books—and once you adjust for that, they're remarkably consistent and help readers who've never been there to get an idea of the place.

Still, all things considered, I'd rather live in Olivia Blacke's Texas. At least Cedar River—it's like Stars Hollow mixed with Bluebell, Alabama, but with better food (and better coffee).

A SMALL CONFESSION
I imagine I'm going to be in the minority on this point, and most readers will shake their heads at me, but...I really didn't care about the murder mystery. It was interesting enough, the red herrings were well-executed—as was the reveal and confrontation with the killer. But I thought the killer's identity was pretty obvious, and nothing about that storyline really grabbed me. It happens sometimes.

But—and this is the important part—I didn't care. I liked everything revolving around the murder mystery—particularly the long-unsolved mystery about the bank robbery. I enjoyed watching Juni and her sisters go about trying to solve things and everything else enough that it didn't matter to me that the central story didn't really click with me. I do think it says something about the world that Blacke is building here that I remained as invested as I did with that issue.

THEY STILL WORK
As I mentioned when I talked about the first book, the music-inspired punny drink names for their coffee counter are just perfect. They're the kind of little touch that adds so much to a scene—you get an idea of the characters behind them if nothing else. Like the names of the stores and restaurants in The Good Place, they add a layer of enjoyment on top of everything else.

Blacke gives you just enough of them to keep you wanting more, but not so many that you roll your eyes at them. It's a tricky balancing act, I'd imagine, but she pulls it off.

I'd say they're the bit of whip cream on top of your specialty coffee drink to add just that nice finishing touch, but I can't stand whip cream on my coffee. But you get the idea.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT A FATAL GROOVE?
I'm going on too long here...and there's so much I haven't talked about, for example:
* The love triangle—it's pretty tame and everything's out in the open (both guys know she's casually dating them both). While I think the right choice is obvious and it's annoying that Juni doesn't just make the right choice, it's not at the "ARGH" stage most triangles get to.
* Her sisters! I really need to spend more time talking about Juni's sisters.
* The way the bank robbery story was resolved was so good, it made up for any of my complaints about the murder story.
* The ability of the owner of a used car dealership to turn anything into a sales pitch is truly impressive. It would be annoying in real life (even if it's what made him a success), but it's fun in a fictional character.
* I have no idea how to talk about what Juni won at the fair and how it tied into resolving so much, but...that was brilliant.
* The funeral scene...so good.
* The way the bank robbery story was resolved was so good, it made up for any of my complaints about the murder story.

This is one of those sequels that improved on everything that the original did right, expanding the world, and just having more fun with everything. Do you need to read Vinyl Resting Place first? Nope—it's very easy to pick things up at this point—you'll likely want to buy it after reading this, but the order isn't essential at this point.

I do worry that at some point the residents of Cedar River are going to decide that Juni's the Angel of Death having brought so many murders to town with her, but until then I'm looking forward to several more adventures with her and her family. ( )

I received an advance copy via NetGalley.

This second volume in the Record Shop Mystery series is a fantastic, breezy, cozy mystery read. The first book (which I also received gratis from the publisher via NetGalley) won me over with its charming setting of Cedar River, Texas, where Juni and her sisters have opened a record album/coffee shop with the most delightful punny names for drinks. This new book kicks off with the suspicious death of the town mayor, and at first glance, it looks like he might've been poisoned by coffee from Juni's shop. Whoops!

The mystery builds at just the right pace. There were a few points where Juni was frustratingly slow on the uptake, but those moments were short lived. The continued love triangle with police detective Beau and mailman Teddy continues in a nice way, and I usually hate love triangles; I like that in this one, they are both decent, caring guys, and they aren't sniping at each other or pressuring Juni. I loved that I guessed the murderer early on, but I was still surprised by some of the twists at the end. In all, a fun book, and I'd happily read on in the series. ( )

Juni Jessup is hoping for a normal Bluebonnet Festival and lots of new business for Sip & Spin - the combination record shop and coffee shop she and her sisters just opened. But when the mayor is found dead in his office clutching one of their to-go cups, Juni and her sisters need to find the killer before their reputation is ruined and oldest sister Tansy who made the coffee is convicted of the murder.

Mayor Bob has been the mayor for a long time. He's so inoffensive that everyone votes for him each election. But someone obviously wanted him dead. Could it be the head of the Town Council and Tansy's long-time rival? Or is it the guy who owns a bunch of used car lots and is dating their mother? After all, the two have been competing for years to find the lost loot stolen from the bank during a bank robbery that occurred during the Bluebonnet Festival in 1956. Or is it the mayor's long-suffering wife who had an iron-clad alibi? She was on an Alaskan Cruise when Bob dies.

Juni is still juggling her two boyfriends. Beau was her college sweetheart but broke her heart. Now he's the only detective on the Cedar River police force and is constantly trying to keep Juni out of his investigations while trying to win her heart again. Teddy was a childhood friend who wants to have a different relationship with Juni now that they are both adults.

This was a fun story with lots of great characters and an entertaining plot. I especially liked Juni's determination to save her family and her business. I liked the small-town setting. ( )

Another winner in this second installment in the Record Shop Mysteries series.

I love the characters, especially the three sisters who run the small town Texas vinyl record store and coffee shop and also the two love interests (the cop and the mailman) for Juni, the youngest sister.

Besides the interesting characters, this had an interesting plot, someone who is murdered after drinking a coffee from the sisters' coffee shop. In this one, I also loved how a long-ago bank robbery from the mid 1950's factored into the story.

A terrific cozy series and one I'd highly recommend!!

(I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via Net Galley, in exchange for a fair and honest review) ( )