ARC Review: Deadly to the Core by Joyce Tremel

Deadly to the Core
Author: Joyce Tremel
Series: A Cider House Mystery
Publication: Crooked Lane Books (January 16, 2024)

Description: Perfect for fans of Amanda Flower and Julie Anne Lindsey, when Kate Mulligan inherits her great uncle’s fruit orchard, she quickly realizes that apples aren’t the only thing that can have rotten cores.

After losing her husband in a terrible car crash, thirty-five-year-old Kate is left to pick up the pieces of her life alone. Although she has physically recovered, she worries her spirit never will. But when she learns that she has inherited a fruit orchard in a small town just outside Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from her great uncle Stan, she takes this as an opportunity ripe for the picking. Kate knew immediately what to do with it: open a cider house. Her hopeful plans fall far from the tree when she finds the body of the orchard manager, Carl Randolph, leaving her to figure out who is at the core of this murder.

She had been in correspondence with Carl, who had agreed with her brilliant idea of opening a cider house. But not everyone is so quick to buy what she was selling—Uncle Stan’s lawyer, Robert Larabee, paints a less rosy financial outlook of the orchard’s past, present, and future.

Kate discovers that Carl had large, unexplained deposits to his bank account and it becomes clear that either he was blackmailing someone, or someone was paying him to keep quiet. Meanwhile, Kate and her neighbors receive offers to buy their property from a mysterious buyer. And there’s more than meets the eye with the neighboring orchard owner, Daniel Martinez, although Kate can’t quite put her finger on if it’s sweet or sour.

Will she be able to pick out the bad apple among the bunch before it’s too late?

My Thoughts: When Kate Mulligan inherits her great-uncle's apple orchard in Pennsylvania, she's hoping for a new start. The loss of her beloved husband in the same accident that greatly damaged her makes her long for a new start. She and her husband had dreamed of opening a cidery and now the chance has become possible.

She has been in correspondence with her orchard manager Carl and with Robert Larabee who is the lawyer managing her great-uncle's estate. When she arrives, she is pleased to reconnect with old friends from her childhood of happy summers spent at the farm until her mother and grandmother had a falling out which ended the visits. 

Her lawyer is trying to convince her to sell the property to a mysterious buyer who is offering more than the property is worth. Her stubbornness and her dreams of her cider house keep her from taking the very attractive offer as some of her neighbors have. When Carl is found beaten to death with the cane she left at his cottage after one of their meetings, she briefly becomes the chief suspect in his murder. When her alibi stands, she decides to look into the crime herself along with neighboring orchard owner Daniel Martinez who is a former state police officer. 

Her childhood best friend Marguerite who now runs the local diner is trying to do a little matchmaking between Kate and Daniel but Kate isn't ready for a new relationship and Daniel is moving slow too. However, the two are quick to from a partnership to determine who killed Carl and who later killed Robert Larabee. 

I enjoyed the setting of this cozy mystery and enjoyed the information about making apple cider. I also liked Kate who is slowly moving on after a heartbreaking loss. The other characters - Daniel, Marguerite, and various new local acquaintances - were all interesting people too. I look forward to more mysteries even though Kate would be most content if she could just concentrate on making her cider. 

The story also includes some recipes of dishes mentioned in the story with the Tomato Bisque being the most interesting to me. 

Favorite Quote:

"Uh," Marguerite said. "It wasn't a serial killer."

"You don't know that," Cherry said. "He could just be getting started."

I wondered what kind of medicinal tea she blended and how much of it she drank.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.