A Zoom with a View: A Mystery

This one is hard to talk about because I can see *exactly* what it was trying to do. A small town full of secrets. Messy relationships. A murder. A complicated mother-daughter dynamic. A love triangle that leans chaotic. And woven throughout it all? A snarky subreddit thread that honestly ended up being one of my favorite parts of the entire book.The ingredients were absolutely there. But for me, it never fully came together in the way I wanted it to.The biggest disconnect was the main character. Leo spends so much of the story stuck in a kind of emotional immaturity that made it difficult for me to stay invested in her choices. And when a story relies heavily on relationship dynamics and emotional tension, that disconnect becomes impossible to ignore.That said, I *did* like that Leo wasn’t a traditional detective. Her background in literature and research gave the mystery a slightly different angle that helped the investigation stand apart from more standard cozy mysteries. There’s also a very large cast of characters, but to the book’s credit, most of them were distinct enough that I never struggled to keep track of who was who.The pacing, though, felt uneven. There were moments where the story was genuinely charming and engaging, especially with the “everyone knows something” small-town atmosphere, but other sections dragged long enough that the momentum started slipping away.And then there’s the ending. No spoilers, but this is ultimately what dropped the rating for me the most. The final stretch felt incredibly rushed, and instead of landing like an intentionally open-ended conclusion, it came across more like an abrupt stop. The love triangle resolution especially had me internally screaming “NO NO NO NO” the entire time, and several important interpersonal conflicts were left hanging in ways that didn’t feel emotionally satisfying.Honestly, the subreddit structure was one of the freshest parts of the book, and I almost wish the story had leaned harder into that modern, meta energy because those sections consistently worked for me. Overall, this is a contemporary cozy mystery with a fun premise, some clever structural choices, and moments of charm, but the emotional payoff and ending just weren’t strong enough for me to fully connect with it.

A Zoom With a View has a good storyline, is fast-paced, but I felt annoyed by so many mentions of reddits and technical aspects of how you get in line making comments about people. The story is very much atuned with our times, influencers, instagram, selling products on line, gaining visibility, but it also includes family relationships and its difficulties, crime and romance. Leo, one of the main characters, will find that maybe coming home is much more than she realized would be and she might have found her life goal. The story is enjoyable and entertaining, a pity it ends in a cliffhanger.

Wow, what a fun discovery! I want to thank #Netgally as I was browsing when I noticed this book, and I am so happy I took a chance. Leo (Leonora) Holloway is an interesting character, very smart but emotionally crippled at the thought of going home to Blue Oak, Texas but circumstances mean she will be spending at least the summer in the place she has avoided for years because of her relationship with her mother. Taking a temporary job with her best friend's family real estate business gives her something to do, Emily's parents pool house gives her someplace to stay and arriving on the 4th of July means she gets to run into a lot of old friends and acquaintances. When Emily and Leo catch a rival realtor, and local influencer messing with the family's parade float bad blood spills over, when two days later Leo finds the body of the influencer in the first house she goes to photograph there are going to be multiple problems for plenty of people she cares about. This is a very interesting mystery with lots of things that draw Leo back into her hometown, into old relationships with friends and into a reexamination of her relationship with her mother and what she thought she knew! With an interesting tidbit being revealed at the end of the book, it looks like we have a great setup for another adventure for Leo and her wonderful crew of friends. Thanks to #Netgally, #RandomHousePress, and the author for an opportunity to discover! #AZoomwithaView #JessCannon #bookreview #bookidea #retiredreader

This cozy mystery was so much fun! There are many short chapters with a number of 3rd person POVs which really rounds out how the story is told. The town is a character all of its own and is fascinating. I can only hope that this is the start of a series. Thanks to Dutton for the ARC.

A quirky cozy mystery set in a small Texas town. A fun read.