eProof Review - The Mystery Guest

Oh boy, where do I start with The Mystery Guest? I liked the first outing with Molly, The Maid, but when I discovered that there was going to be a sequel, I was very hesitant over the announcement. To me, The Maid felt really good and fairly solid as a stand-alone and, because of this, I couldn’t see how the sequel would work.

Title and Author: The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

Publisher: HarperCollins

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by UK publisher via NetGalley in exchange for honest review/reaction

Buy From (Affiliate): uk.bookshop.org

Set around four years after the events of The Maid, Molly is now Head Maid at the Regency Hotel and the hotel is about to open its new Tearoom with a reclusive author doing a press conference. But when the author falls dead before he could announce his news, Molly finds her trying to figure out what is happening at the hotel.

Like with The Maid, this is a fun, easy read and I whizzed through.

However, this didn’t reach the heights of the Molly’s first outing.

Now, I know I am in the minority here. But as I read this, I kept thinking to myself “This feels unnecessary” and I could never get away from that feeling.

Also, The Mystery Guest never felt like a sequel to The Maid. Yes, there is a four year gap between The Maid and The Mystery Guest and the characters have grown and changed (I liked how people get Molly and respect her now unlike in the first), but it didn’t feel like the same author wrote both books.

Maybe it was because we had two dual timelines happening in this and it leans more into the cosy murder mystery aspect while away from the biting dark humour of the first, but there was a disconnect between the two books.

Like I said earlier, I know I am in the minority and that really bums me out as I like Molly, but I don’t think I will be picking up her third outing (at the moment, this seems to be a rumour, nothing confirmed).