Books, Bunnies, and a Body: A Bonne Année Mystery (Bonne Année Mysteries Book 2)

5 Star Review

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Editorial Book Review:

By Erick Harris

Spring has arrived in Hazelton, Oregon, and bookshop owner Année has every reason to expect a lovely season. A Peter Rabbit tea at The Literary Table. A garden wedding to plan. Family coming from every direction. Her loyal Bernedoodle Oscar on full-time chocolate bunny patrol. N.E. Carlisle sets this domestic idyll up with such warmth and specificity that when the beloved town egg hunt takes a dark turn, the disruption lands exactly as hard as she intended. In Hazelton, sweetness and murder have an established relationship.

That is, of course, precisely the charm of the Bonne Année Mysteries, and Books, Bunnies, and a Body delivers it with the same hand that made Hazelnuts and Homicide an award-winning debut. Carlisle has a gift for making a fictional small town feel genuinely inhabited rather than constructed for atmosphere, and Hazelton, Oregon, is one of the more satisfying examples of the genre's art of place. Everyone here knows what you ordered at the bakery. Everyone has an opinion about the wedding. And when trouble comes, it comes from inside the community rather than crashing in from outside, which makes it feel both more intimate and more unsettling.

The investigation that unfolds when the egg hunt goes wrong pulls Année into the familiar but never formulaic territory of small-town secrets and springtime rivalries. What Carlisle does consistently well is trust the mystery to carry its own weight without racing past the pleasures that brought readers here in the first place: the bookshop atmosphere, the food, the friendship, Oscar's persistent conviction that he is the most important person in any room.

The recipes at the end of every Bonne Année Mystery are not an afterthought. They are part of the contract with the reader, an invitation to cook along with Hazelton and bring a little of its warmth to your own table.

For readers who want their cozy mysteries to feel like a genuine place worth returning to, this series keeps earning that return visit.

About the Author

N.E. Carlisle

N.E. Carlisle writes stories steeped in mystery, community, and a strong sense of place, from small-town bookshops to windswept coastal shores.

She is the author of the Bonne Année Mysteries, where food, friendship, and a dash of danger mix in the charming coastal town of Hazelton, Oregon. The series debut, Hazelnuts and Homicide, won the 2025 Firebird Book Award for Cozy Mystery and the PenCraft Book Award for Best Fiction (Mystery-Sleuth), and was named an Amazon #1 Best Seller in Cozy Culinary Mystery. The story continues in Books, Bunnies, and a Body.

Carlisle is also the creator of Mermaid Eclipse, a coastal fantasy inspired by myth and transformation.

When she's not writing, she can often be found near the water, dreaming up new recipes, characters, and twists for the next story.