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The Deadliest Blessing: A Provincetown Mystery (Sydney Riley Series Book 3) Kindle Edition

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 59 ratings

If there’s a dead body anywhere in Provincetown, wedding consultant Sydney Riley is going to be the one to find it!
The seaside town’s annual Portuguese Festival is approaching and it looks like smooth sailing until Sydney’s neighbor decides to have some construction done in her home—and finds more than she bargained for inside her wall.

Now Sydney is again balancing her work at the Race Point Inn with an unexpected adventure that will eventually involve fishermen, gunrunners, a mummified cat, a family fortune, misplaced heirs, a girl with a mysterious past, and lots and lots of Portuguese food. The Blessing of the Fleet is coming up, and unless Sydney can find the key to a decades-old murder, it might yet come back to haunt everyone in this otherwise-peaceful fishing village.


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Editorial Reviews

Review

When Provincetown wedding coordinator and amateur detective Sydney Riley discovers a decomposed corpse in her elderly Portuguese neighbor's wall, the sins of the past reach out to the present and stir up long-dormant passions. Sydney's investigations lead her back to the Summer of Love hippie-era when drug- and alcohol-fueled tensions ran high and the families of fishermen and hard-living writers mixed with often-dire results. Sifting through tales from those long-ago days, Sydney must learn the identity of the killer before those who know the truth are silenced. At the same time, Sydney's boyfriend Ali, an ICE officer, is investigating a dangerous human trafficking ring. The action boils over in a shocking climax during the annual Blessing of the Fleet. de Beauvoir seamlessly blends fact and fiction, past and present, as "the tired, the lonely, even the misfits" of Land's End grapple with guilt in the third installment of this riveting mystery series.


--Debra Lawless is the author of the two-volume history of Provincetown--
Provincetown Since World War II: Carnival at Land's End and Provincetown: A History of Artists and Renegades in a Fishing Village published by The History Press

Wedding planner Sydney Riley is smart, funny, slightly quirky, and destined to find dead bodies in the strangest places. In The Deadliest Blessingshe faces witches, magic, and murder that keep her--and the reader--guessing. Toss in the unique Provincetown culture, a fundamentalist Muslim police commissioner, and a sympathetic ICE boyfriend, and you've got a page-turner to the end!

--Janice Zarro Brodman, author, Sex Rules!: Astonishing Sexual Practices and Gender Roles Around the World

About the Author

Award-winning author Jeannette de Beauvoir writes mystery and historical fiction (or a combination thereof) that's rooted in a sense of place, and her delight is to find characters true to the spaces in which they live. She herself lives and writes in a cottage in Provincetown, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and loves the collection of people who assemble at a place like land's end. She's a member of the Authors Guild, the Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the National Writers Union. She also teaches writing courses both online and onsite. Find out more--and read her blog--at her website.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07DBTG2Y7
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ HomePort Press (June 1, 2018)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 1, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2656 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 292 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 59 ratings

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Jeannette de Beauvoir
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Jeannette de Beauvoir didn’t set out to murder anyone—some things are just meant to be! Her mother introduced her to the Golden Age of mystery fiction when she was far too young to be reading it, and she’s kept reading those authors and many like them ever since.

She wrote historical and literary fiction and poetry for years before someone asked her what she read—and she realized mystery was where her heart was. Now working on the Sydney Riley Provincetown mystery series, she bumps off a resident or visitor to her hometown on a regular basis.

Jeannette is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Author’s Guild, and the National Writers Union. She presents a weekly radio show on the arts streaming on WOMR, a Pacifica network affiliate, and is theatre critic for ptownie.com. Find out more (and read her blog or sign up for her newsletter) at jeannettedebeauvoir.com. You can also find her on Facebook, Instagram, Patreon, and Goodreads.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
59 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book engaging with well-developed characters. They describe it as a great read and better than the previous book.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

3 customers mention "Character development"3 positive0 negative

Customers enjoyed the character development. They found the writing great and the ending satisfying.

"I enjoyed this book a lot. It's a compelling mystery and all the characters are well drawn, and as a Ptown regular, I loved picturing all the..." Read more

"...Once again, the writing is great, the characters well developed, and the ending always a surprise." Read more

"...Jeannette is on a roll with the combination of the location and the main character. Looking forward to the next Provincetown mystery." Read more

3 customers mention "Readability"3 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the books. They say they're a great read and better than the previous book.

"Book #3 of the series. Each one is better than the previous book. Sydney and Ali are great together. Looking forward to the next book." Read more

"...The twist and turns keep you wondering! A great book!!" Read more

"Great read!" Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2023
    Book #3 of the series. Each one is better than the previous book. Sydney and Ali are great together. Looking forward to the next book.
  • Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2020
    I enjoyed this book a lot. It's a compelling mystery and all the characters are well drawn, and as a Ptown regular, I loved picturing all the locations and hearing the familiar stories. I ended up reading it in one sitting, though I didn't intend to when I sat down!

    My one complaint, and why I subtracted a star, was the editing, specifically the formatting of the dialogue. In a conversation, whenever the speaker changes, a new paragraph should start. But there are many paragraphs in this book that don't do that. I'm not just being a stickler - it genuinely did confuse me, trying to figure out who was saying what. Maybe this is only in the electronic version of book and not in print. I don't know.

    But as I said, I genuinely did enjoy the book. I'm excited to dive in to the others in the series, especially this year when we might all have to cancel our summer plans. It's not as good as being in Ptown, but it definitely helps.
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2020
    The series of Sydney Riley Mystery’s themes of Provincetown the Deadliest Blessings, I couldn’t put the book down ! Was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out how done it. The twist and turns keep you wondering! A great book!!
  • Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2019
    Loved the latest in the Sydney series on P-Town. Once again, the writing is great, the characters well developed, and the ending always a surprise.
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2018
    Another great tale in the Provincetown series. Jeannette is on a roll with the combination of the location and the main character. Looking forward to the next Provincetown mystery.
  • Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2018
    "The Deadliest Blessing" is Jeannette de Beauvoir's third installment in The Provincetown Theme Week Mysteries. Wedding planner and occasional sleuth, Sydney Riley, turns her attention towards Provincetown's Portuguese community, the historical bedrock of the town's vivid, local culture. While aiding an elderly town Portuguese woman, Sydney and she discover a corpse of a woman who died in 1968 The Summer of Love. Sydney investigates the mystery of how the woman died and why, unfolding a narrative of passionate, emotionally charged characters concentrated in the small setting of Provincetown.

    Jeanette de Beauvoir does an exquisite job of reconstructing Provincetown's culture of yesteryear - a time when full-time Portuguese residents still hosted colorful writers, artists, and musicians; a time when literary luminaries like Normal Mailer made headlines with his pugnacious antics; a time when artists such as Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, and Franz Kline paid their bar tabs with paintings; a time when hippie self-liberation challenged convention. She also writes an exquisite homage to the town's cherished Portuguese heritage. "The Deadliest Blessing" is worth the read as an extended tone poem to Provincetown. The mystery is also worth the read because of some unexpected twists with her subliminally intense characters.

    Let us also ask, "Wither Sydney?". How well is Sydney Riley developing as a character now that readers are on their third encounter with her? The answer is still too variable to gauge. In "The Deadliest Blessing", Sydney is at times stalwart as a Mother Superior; at other times, she comes across as Marlow Thomas in "That Girl" - charming yet encountering peril by happenstance. Is Sydney progressing to an event of her making or breaking, especially with Ali, her beau in law enforcement? We await more resolution of Sydney's arc in future releases of de Beauvoir's The Provincetown Theme Week Mysteries.
  • Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2018
    *I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

    I think the diverse cast of characters is what sets this novel apart from others. We have all different cultures blended into this fishing village, and I just loved how alive the story felt because of it. It was very realistic, and the different cultures really brought the story to life.

    Sydney Riley is a great main character. I enjoyed her snarky thoughts to herself. Sometimes first person doesn’t go over well with me in novels- the character has to be interesting enough. Sydney was a great narrator and I loved reading from her perspective.

    I loved the premise of this novel, and the mystery was really interesting. I never was able to guess what was actually going on, and I was genuinely surprised at the end.

    The pace of the novel felt a little slow in the beginning, but it picked up toward the middle. The final scenes were exciting and the resolution of the mystery was satisfying.

    The Deadliest Blessing was a fun read. It is filled with really cool history, a diverse cast of characters and a humerous main character.
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2019
    Great read!

Top reviews from other countries

  • M. Negrete
    5.0 out of 5 stars Funny
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2018
    It is a very interesting novel in the environment of Provincetown. I like the plot and the environment.

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