Book Review: “Nest Egg” by Josi Avari

I love this cover graphic. So clever. All the covers in this series are gems.

Nest Egg is the first of a cozy mystery series (Aloha Chicken Mysteries) set in—you guessed it—Hawaii. I read all eighteen books, enjoyed them thoroughly, and surfaced refreshed with a renewed faith in the goodness of people. 

I don’t know about you but I’m not getting enough space these days. From congested traffic. From people needing me. From the news. Every day, there’s a new shock. It’s all too much. I feel crowded. So crowded. I need room, a safe space. To rest. To dispel the darkness. To stay sane in an insane situation.

What’s my safe space? Reading in bed. There is nothing I love more than spending time in a compelling imaginative world. Give me a cozy mystery series any day. Especially these days. Please. I’ll trade you this one by Josi Avari. 

What could be more spacious than living in imagination for a nice long while (eighteen books!) in a small beach town on the island of Oahu, where the paradise that is Hawaii is its own character? Where the people are gentle, caring, and friendly? (Except for the bad guys of course.) Where the protagonist Saffron Skye—a lonely, grieving event planner from Washington DC— inherits from a distant uncle a farm with one hundred hens and one cockerel?

Saffron settles in. She becomes an egg farmer (You’ll find out). She makes friends, finds family, and enjoys a complicated love life. We discover she’s an excellent problem solver and a kind-hearted sleuth. We learn things. (Did you know Hawaii has a feral chicken problem?)

What could be more soothing than everything working out in the end? Well, wait, not everything. Those unanswered questions kept me pleasurably reading, book after book. The last one tied up all the loose ends in a fine big bow. So satisfying. Well done, Author!

Nest Egg, the first of the Aloha Chicken Mysteries by Josi Avari. Don’t say no to this fine respite from reality. Five stars.

What is your safe space? What are you reading? Inquiring minds need to know.

What’s this psychiatrist thinking about as she works with patients? Not lunch! Check out my clinical memoir spanning twenty five years of practice.

Want to know why patients wait to the last minute to drop a bombshell? Why Duke Ellington said, “I don’t need time. I need a deadline.” Short answer to both: it’s a brain thing. Find out more here.