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    The Body in the Birches: A Faith Fairchild Mystery
    Unavailable
    The Body in the Birches: A Faith Fairchild Mystery
    Unavailable
    The Body in the Birches: A Faith Fairchild Mystery
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Body in the Birches: A Faith Fairchild Mystery

    Written by Katherine Hall Page

    Narrated by Tanya Eby

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    The Fourth of July is one of the hottest on record, and even the breeze off Penobscot Bay can't seem to cool things down for Faith Fairchild and the rest of the folks on Sanpere Island. After the celebrations are over, Faith discovers a body in the woods near The Birches, an early 20th-century "cottage". The body is identified as The Birches' housekeeper. The death is only one of the dramatic events upending the historic house.

    A family gathering has been called to decide who will inherit the estate that has been in the Proctor family for generations. With this much money involved, it's just a matter of time before trouble arises.

    ©2015 Katherine Hall Page (P)2015 Dreamscape Media, LLC

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateMay 12, 2015
    ISBN9781633799660
    Author

    Katherine Hall Page

    Katherine Hall Page is the author of twenty-five previous Faith Fairchild mysteries, the first of which received the Agatha Award for best first mystery. The Body in the Snowdrift was honored with the Agatha Award for best novel of 2006. Page also won an Agatha for her short story “The Would-Be Widower.” The recipient of the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement, she has been nominated for the Edgar, the Mary Higgins Clark, the Maine Literary, and the Macavity awards. She lives in Massachusetts and Maine with her husband.

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    Reviews for The Body in the Birches

    3.5/5

    116 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I saw a favorable review of the latest Faith Fairchild mystery and decided to have a go at the series, beginning with this one, #1. So glad I did! Katherine Hall Page writes a cozy mystery that has more substance and style than most. Readers must like them because she's heading toward two dozen by now. I was surprised to see the tepid reviews, and even more, the snarky ones because I thoroughly enjoyed The Body in the Belfry and am eagerly ordering more books in the series. Apparently people either like the protagonist Faith Fairchild, or they don't. I like her very much indeed, probably because I identify with her (full disclosure: I'm a minister's wife, too, and I love NYC where I attended college). Her marrying a minister and moving to a small New England town was much like my marrying my minister/beloved and moving to a rural area in North Carolina, especially since she has a baby and a determination to continue on with her career. It's a challenge and a blessing, and I can identify so well with her struggles and joys - the book seemed authentic to me, and a good read. Looking forward to the ones that have followed, set in Aleford and various other locations, including two - to date - prequels.
    • 3/5
      Nice little cozy til the end, whereupon rabbits were jumping out of hats everywhere. I’ll still give the next in the series a try because I’m a sucker for a cozy and a cup of tea.
    • 5/5
      I definitely liked this book, exceptionally well written first novel in a series. We quickly come to care about Faith, her family and her adjustment to New England after a childhood in New York City. The descriptions of places were right on with my memories.

      Also, I like that Faith is not stupid.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed the relationship between amateur sleuth Faith Fairchild and her minister husband. I agree with another reviewer that this is a light read, but not a stupid read. The plot is sufficiently complex, the setting (small town New England) is rich and relevant to the story, and the characters have depth. The depiction of life as a minister's wife is realistic, not syrupy. I will definitely read more of the series.
    • 3/5
      Rating: 2.5* of five The Book Description: During her years spent in New York City. Faith Fairchild was convinced she had seen pretty much everything. But the transplanted caterer/minister's wife was unprepared for the surprises awaiting her in the sleepy Massachusetts village of Aleford. And she is especially taken aback by the dead body of a pretty young thing she discovers stashed in the church's belfry. The victim, Cindy Shepherd. was well-known locally for her acid tongue and her jilted beaux, which created a lot of bad blood and more than a few possible perpetrators including her luckless fiance, who had neither an alibi nor a better way to break off the engagement. Faith thinks it's terribly unfair that the police have zeroed in on the hapless boyfriend, and so she sets out to uncover the truth. But digging too deeply into the sordid secrets of a small New England village tends to make the natives nervous. And an overly curious big city lady can become just another small town death statistic in very short order. My Review: BAD First Mystery Novel Syndrome: Introduce characters that Central Casting would find rich and nuanced, but the Experienced Mysterian finds barely three-dimensional.Then kill people that have blindingly obvious connections to each other, and to a cast of interchangeable Cozy Village Populators. Extra points (off) for including ancestor worshiping elders in a New England setting as major plot movers. Throw in a white cop from the Bronx as a detective with a Noo Yawk attitude. Ugh.Describe your sleuth and her family with phrases so stock as to cause the Experienced Mysterian to make a mental police-artist drawing with attendant level of accuracy.Set your story in a small New England stereotype of a town during the fall and have the transplanted New Yorker sleuth comment on the scenery and the weather without the slightest hint of fresh observation or even any believable motivation for her to so much as notice them.Reveal the killer in such a way as to cause maximum snorts of derision and impatient huffing. The killer's identity was, I admit, not a standard choice, and so this first novel got an extra half star.It's the first novel of NINETEEN in the series to date. If my very, very, very favorite porn star slipped into bed next to me, whispered disgusting and salacious suggestions of what he'd like me to do to him, and then said I had to read the second in the series before I was allowed to, I'd read the next one.Otherwise, no. I have Ambien for sleeplessness, and while not as effective as this book in conkin' me out, it hurts less.
    • 4/5
      I'm not as enamored with Faith as many of the other reviewers seem to be... but all in all a good mystery and a solid start. Hoping for better on the next one.
    • 3/5
      Another pick for my little mystery lunch group and another enjoyable read. This is the first in this particular series for Page and it's a fine start. The writing is both eloquent and down to earth, sometimes quite tongue in cheek. Page throws in a few asides that are absolutely hilarious.Faith Fairchild, formerly a successful caterer in NYC and now wife to a small town minister and new mother to son Benjamin, discovers the body of a young woman in a church belfry. Faith soon discovers that the townspeople disliked the young woman as much as she did. And that many of them had reasons to want her dead. The more Faith learns, the closer she gets to the killer. Will she discover the killer before the killer discovers her?Cozy readers will like this one. It is engaging and good fun.
    • 2/5
      This is a "cozy mystery," the first in a series, of the kind with recipes included. (Thankfully, unlike Davidson, at the back of the books, not smack in the middle of the narrative.) This book didn't exactly suck me in and point of view issues didn't help. Most of the first chapter was skimmable backstory told in narrative summary, and Faith Sibley, our sleuth, didn't come alive to me as a person. Faith is a caterer and minister's wife in the small Massachusetts town of Aleford. She's heaving "Victorian sighs" because she's homesick for New York City and bewailing nothing has happened in Aleford since 1775. (I found Faith rather whiny in general.) Then, of course, she finds the body of bad girl Cindy Shepherd (on a bench near) the historical belfry--and the scandal over whether Faith should have rung the bell "almost eclipses" the murder in the town. Even after we get into the meat of the story though, something about the style (like lots of infodump) and the main character made this a slog--the further I got in, the harder I found it to keep going until I crawled to a stop halfway.
    • 4/5
      First in the Faith Fairchild series by Katherine Hall Page. Faith is a minister's daughter and granddaughter, and never expected to marry a minister herself. She had a successful catering business in New York City, and can't imagine not living there. But she meets Tom Fairchild and marries him. Now she lives in Aleford, Mass., and has a five month old baby Benjamin.She finds the body of Cindy Shepard, a young Aleford woman soon to be married. She was not well-liked in the community, however, as she had an unpleasant personality. She was beautiful, however, and had affairs with many men. Faith, it must be admitted, is a little bored with her life and the prospect of solving the mystery is exciting.The next murder changes all of that, as it is of a woman beloved by all. Page is excellent at showing how such a death affects the other characters. Faith herself, her baby, and the pre-teen daughter of the murdered woman come into danger before the case is solved.I read the 17th book in the series first and decided I liked it and would go back and start from the first book. It was a good decision. A good book that promises a good series.
    • 4/5
      A very enjoyable read, as are all her books of the series "The Body in..." A nice mixture of a an experienced cook/caterer and an amateur detective.