| Title | : | A Villa in Sicily: Olive Oil and Murder (A Cats and Dogs Cozy Mystery #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 191 |
| Publication | : | First published November 5, 2020 |
Audrey Smart, 34, is a brilliant vet—yet fed up by her demanding clients who think they know more than her and who don’t care about their animals. Burnt-out with the endless hours, she wonders if the time has come for a new direction. And when her 15th year high school reunion (and her hopes for re-sparking on old flame) end in disaster, Audrey knows the time has come to make a change.
When Audrey sees an ad for a $1 home in Sicily, it captivates her. The only catch is that the house requires renovation, something she knows little about. She wonders if it could be real—and if she may really be crazy enough to go for it.
Can Audrey create a life and career—and the home of her dreams—in a beautiful Sicilian village? And perhaps even find love while she’s there?
Or will an unexpected death—one that only she can solve—put an end to all of her plans?
Are some dreams too good to be true?
A laugh-out-loud cozy packed with mystery, intrigue, renovation, animals, food, wine—and of course, love—
A Villa in Sicily: Olive Oil and Murder (A Cats and Dogs Cozy Mystery #1) Reviews
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II just loved this start to a new series. It is charming, exciting and has some great characters. I am not sure the mystery did much for me because it seemed liked the mystery was side to the rest of the book rather than the whole story but I loved the idea of buying a house in Sicily for one dollar and moving and meeting some nice and some so not nice people. A great start to what I think will be a wonderful series. I also love that her now pet is a fox. The ending was fantastic as well.
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Ever seen those ads where there is a picture of a quaint little home in a pretty part of the world 'and it's only a dollar?' A pretty sketchy offer that is highly likely too good to be true is the beginning of a cozy mystery series set in a Sicilian village and featuring adorable animals and an inquisitive veterinarian.
After a reunion gone wrong, a last straw situation at the veterinary office that ends in her resignation, and a chat with her sister about being a little adventuresome, out of work and feeling low, Audrey Smart plunks down her dollar and hies it off to Sicily to start over on a new life adventure.
Naturally, the villa isn't all that she thought and Audrey is tempted to pack it in, but then she straightens her spine and leaps into the task of DIY-ing her old decrepit villa into a lovely home. Not long after she gets going, a sudden death has her swapping out her took kit for a sleuthing hat.
A Villa in Sicily got off to a bumpy start for me. I wasn't that impressed with Audrey and I had to get over the improvable way she landed in her new situation or that she suddenly turned into a DIY-er extraordinaire and doing so well with a language, cultural, and even more barriers that should have been more of a struggle. Oh, yes, there are some terribly funny and cringe-worthy fails and she definitely needed a ton of help and got it. But yes, I definitely had to just buy in and shrug at that sort of thing. In truth, I wanted to because I thought it was a lovely dream to be able to chuck a tough life and start over in a pretty and old Sicilian villa while doing a job she loved and acting as an amateur detective.
Most of the book is spent introducing Audrey and transplanting her from old life to new, introducing her project and the village. The mystery is a bit crammed in at the end. Oh, and there is the start of a romance which I thought was a good thing. I'm guessing that the rest of the series will introduce the mysteries sooner and give over more time to development.
The narrator was a first time for me, Sarah Kempton. I loved her voice and thought she was a fab narrator with a good range of voice changes to represent the characters. But, I thought it was odd that she was chosen to narrate since her English-voice was British and not American. It was distracting because Audrey, her sister, and most of the early cast are American.
So, it was a mixed bag for me from narration choice to suspending my belief for a bit, but it did leave me open to going on with the series to see Audrey, her small Sicilian village, and more cozy mysteries. -
Audrey Smart has had more than enough of her current life. She loves being a vet and loves animals, but not their owners. She’s done with the vet she works for. Then, she attends her high school reunion and becomes even more desperate to change her life choices.
She stumbles upon a chance in a lifetime opportunity. For only $1, she can buy a home in Sicily. The home needs some renovations, but Audrey is ready to take on the challenge. She leaves her life and her job in Boston and heads to Italy.
Unfortunately, not everyone in the small town in Sicily is welcoming. She gets into an argument with a worker and then discovers his dead body. Naturally, she’s the number one suspect. Being the newcomer in town, the police look no further. Audrey is determined to prove her innocence.
This is the first book in the Cats and Dogs Cozy Mystery series. It’s a fast-paced, light hearted mystery. I liked Audrey, but I kept shaking my head at the choices she made. The characters are quirky and a little fox grabbed my heart . I won’t say more as I don’t want to spoil things.
The audio book is charming to listen to and the narrator did a wonderful job. I’m looking forward to reading or listening to the next book in the series. -
4⭐️
I really enjoyed this short, fun book!
Audrey, an American veterinarian lands in Italy to assess the home she bought online, sight unseen. Her first day in town is full of blunders and shortly after she arrives, someone she had heated words with, ends up dead.
The murder/crime aspect of the story only starts about halfway in, however.
Language: 13 abuses of God’s name, 8 fricken, 1 heck, 2 darn, 2 h, 2 d, a, ba, 1 dang -
This is one of the many books I read last year and didn't find the time to review - probably because it was a meh read for me.
Young veterinarian women is not appreciated and degraded by her colleagues, superiors, and customers. She is also downtrodden and feels a failure in comparison to the people who graduated with her in ...(HS? College?). 🎜🎜Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm going to...🎝🎝. Boo hoo!
So what would you do, if you were in her shoes? Of course, you would answer an advertisement and buy a villa for $1 in Sicily (seriously?). Then with no knowledge of the language and virtually no savings to speak of, you would pack up and move to a rural Sicilian town, into a wreck of a house that doesn't even have a functioning toilet! Then, just for good measure, you would discover a dead body and become the principal suspect.
Although that sounds like it might be a cute story, it is more like a very pale, faded version of the movies Baby Boom, Under the Tuscan Sun, and a dozen others with the same theme but far more charm and no dead bodies.
The book, which is part of a series, is free on Kindle and available on Hoopla, if your library subscribes. So, if the above sounds like fun to you, there are five more books in the series, waiting on the shelf for the asking. Enjoy! -
First off, I'm not sure why this is called the cats & dogs cozy since there aren't either in this book but maybe in future stories there will be. I loved the beginning, when it started in Boston and the idea of following your dream for the $1 Italian villa we've all heard about. Once there the story kind of took a turn for me. It felt like it was attempting to be like Under the Tuscan Sun meets murder mystery but it didn't totally work for me. I loved the fox and it was so well written I was actually heartbroken that she'd leave it.
I would probably continue on with the series but am not jumping to get to the next. -
Entirely unbelievable and rather infuriating at times, but am I a sucker ? And will I read the next one? Probably.
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A nice cozy mystery with a happy Sicilian ending. Caio.
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Absolutely adored this one!!
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A delightful story of a young female veterinarian who buys a house in Sicily for ONE US dollar and quits her job to enjoy a new life. An adventure! Have you seen those advertisements? Were you at least tempted to buy one, sight unseen?
What do you think she will find? A dream house? Well, whatever it is it will take some loving care. She found hers and within a few days she ended up suspected of murder. Yes, and facing years in an Italian prison.
There is so much more to this tale, so...
Don't miss this one! -
Solid 3⭐️. I would have rated this higher but there seemed to be a lot of build up to the meat of the story. As this is the beginning of a series, some of that is understandable, but we’re quite a long way in before we get to the murder, and as such (being a cozy) there’s not a lot of time to really dig into the mystery.
Audrey Smart is a veterinarian in Boston with a job she doesn’t like, in a crappy apartment, and zero love life. So, after a disastrous high school reunion, she places a bid on a $1 villa in Sicily that she sees on a Facebook ad. The bid is accepted (assuming she’ll help the villagers as a vet) and she packs up and moves to Italy. Of course nothing is as good as it seems and she finds herself with a rundown place with a very scary bathroom. She’s doing the renovations herself, but her snotty neighbor hires a contractor, who ends up dead. Audrey is the main suspect, and she must clear her name if she ever wants to leave town again.
This was a solid start with some interesting side characters and some possibilities for a romance plot to be woven in in future installments. Audrey is likable and I found myself rooting for her. Who wouldn’t love a character that adopts a fox?!? 🦊
I liked this enough that I will look for the next installments. The audio books are only about 6 hours long and it’s also nice to get some shorter stories every once in awhile too. Not everything needs to be 18 hours 🙄 -
A good beginning to a new series. Audrey is likeable if somewhat naive. She's a vet in Boston who is constantly being unappreciated at work and then her apartment is sold and the rent is doubled. She goes to her high school reunion and realizes that she really isn't happy with her life. She sees an ad for a home in Sicily for $1 and impulsively decides to go for it. The home needs lots of repairs but she's game to try to fix it up. When a contractor working on a home across murdered, Audrey finds the body and becomes a suspect. If she wants to not wind up in an Italian prison then she needs to solve the murder herself. Good characters, funny moments and interesting situations. All in all, a good read.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review -
This is first in the Cats and Dogs series, which is set in Sicily. The main character is a veterinarian who resigns her job and buys a house for an euro in a small town in Sicily on the condition that she refurbish it. She is also offered a chance by the town council to open a clinic in the town and to deal with the stray cat situation in town. Unfortunately she finds a dead body and feels like she has to solve the murder. Her pet sidekick is a young fox she rescued. I like the idea of this starting over plot and the setting is fun.
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It was free... but mildly entertaining.
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I loved this book, the first in a new series by Fiona Grace set in Italy. Audry Smart, a veterinarian in Boston, was living in a tiny apartment with the rent about to be doubled, $200,000 in debt from her student loans, and getting hit on and disrespected by the two male vets. She had to do something! She quit her job and answered an ad on Facebook for buying a house in Sicily for one dollar!
The house was a disaster, but Audrey had been well-trained by her contractor father so she was not intimidated. Unfortunately, a contractor working on the house across the street was pushed off a cliff to his death. Even more unfortunate Audrey discovered the body and the police found her holding the victim's boot putting her at the top of the list of suspects. Finding the murderer became her first priority.
The characters are all delightful, even the not so nice ones. The resolution was well-crafted, there was good Italian food, although she didn't speak more than a word of Italian there were plenty of folks in the little town that did. All in all a great cozy mystery. I can't wait to read book #2!
I really appreciate the author's ability to describe the locations of her books, almost making the setting another character. Sicily has captured my imagination and travel there is now on my bucket list. -
2021 bk 58. I'm not quite sure what caught my eye, the cover, the person purchasing a $1.00 home in Sicily, the renovation mystery, but I am pleased that it did. A fun mystery surrounding the murder of a builder in Sicily. Most of those purchasing the $1 homes in Mussomeli intend to remodel the homes themselves. Certainly Audrey Smart, fed up with her Boston life, her job at a certain vet clinic, intended to do that. Her home turned out to be even less than she had hoped for - but she had burned her bridges, spent her money and what else was a woman to do. Unlike the woman across the street, Audrey learned where the hardware store was, dined locally, and got to know her neighbors in the falling down area of the town. They in turn helped with gifts of toilets, construction tasks, and bowls of wonderful food - until she discovers a body in the bushes. Audrey's life turns upside down as she is tracked by the police, harbors 'illegally' an injured fox, and is continually being asked to treat pets. Yes, she is a veterinarian, but not yet licensed in Sicily. All comes together as she figures out who dunit is this fun Italian mystery. This is a short mystery - more than a novella, not quite a full paperback, fun for a bedtime read.
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A veterinarian goes to Sicily to find happiness.
Our protagonist does not get the respect she deserves. She is living in a crappy apartment, and saddled with student debt.
Totally dissatisfied with her life, she impulsively clicks on one of those $1 properties that sound too good to be true and are a scam.
Except, it is not a scam. The property is in a tiny obscure village in Sicily. At arrival, she realizes the reason the property was so cheap.
No cozy mystery can survive without a detirmined main character suspected of murder. In between rennovations, our vet needs to exonerarate herself and make more money and hide an illegal pet. -
3.5 stars. A cute start to this cozy mystery series. When Audrey Smart decides to chuck her drab life in Boston for a new adventure, she buys a villa in Sicily for one Euro, not having any idea of what she has let herself in for. The house needs a lot of work and even though Audrey considers herself more than able, she quickly finds herself herself overwhelmed. On top of it all, she’s the prime suspect in a murder of a construction foreman who she had very publicly argued with the day before. Add in some quirky neighbors and a cute little fox named Nick and this was a pleasant read.
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Interesting read. A vet flees her boring life in Boston for a 1 euro house in Sicily. The house turns out to be a wreck and then she finds a body across the street. He was the contractor who had been trashing her front stoop with debris. They had an argument about it just the night before his death. And of course she be owes the chief suspect.
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I admit, I am a sucker for nice stories. Add this to my list. A nice young Veterinarian, discouraged in office politics, decides to take a chance on a house in Sicily for $1.00. Stating a/c running water, updated utilities, electricity.
Complete home for $1. When Audrey arrives, she finds a very sad old shack that needs more work than imaginable. But she stays. The rest of the story is very cute. As a Vet, she finds an injured fox. Nurses him back to health, and becomes hopelessly crazy over this little fellow. But because he is a wild animal, she can not keep him in the city limits. Good, happy story... on to the next adventure in the series! -
It gets 4 stars in the category of cozy mystery, not like 4 stars in the category of all books ever if that makes sense. I really enjoyed it. It’s kind of like if a hallmark movie was a murder mystery. If you love murder mysteries but want a break from the really dark stuff, this is a fun, quick read.
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An easy read
I really enjoyed this book. Following a disastrous day at work and an awkward school reunion Audrey Smart answers a Facebook ad and moved to Sicily where things don't start as she had hoped but it all comes right in the end though.
