Cozy Mystery Review: Dial A for Aunties | Jesse Q. Sutanto | Aunties #1

Jesse Q. Sutano kicks off a new cozy mystery series with a group of chaotic aunties and a murder in Dial A for Aunties.

What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family?

You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue!

About the Book | Dial A for Aunties

When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline. It’s the biggest job yet for the family wedding business—”Don’t leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!“—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie’s perfect buttercream flowers.

But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy’s great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend? (Synopsis from Goodreads)

Review | Dial A for Aunties

You will not be able to read this book without laughing. I am giggling just thinking about some of the exchanges and hijinks, including one particularly funny text exchange! Jesse Q. Sutanto has so much diversity in her writing, and I’m not just talking about the characters. She has mastered so many genre—romance, mystery, psychological thriller, contemporary fiction, and young adult fiction. This book proves that she not only can write a great cozy mystery, but she knows how to write to life whatever mood the reader is in!

Meddelin “Meddy” Chan is part of a wedding planning company shared among members of her family. They help organize everything! Her big auntie makes the cakes, her second auntie does beauty and make up for the bride, her fourth aunt handles entertainment, and her mother designs the wedding bouquet. Meddy does wedding photography, though she isn’t very fulfilled in that job (please don’t tell her aunties and mother, though!).

They are on the night of a big, expensive wedding and they can’t afford any mistakes. Unfortunately, things never seem to go fully according to plan with this family. This time Meddy is the problem—she accidentally killed her blind date ten hours earlier and placed the body in her Auntie’s freezer. There seems to have been a mix up, though—the body accidentally gets removed from her Auntie’s house and brought to the freezer at the resort.

Meddy needs to figure out how to get rid of the body without disrupting the wedding and terrifying the guests! To make things more complicated, the manager of the resort is Meddy’s ex-boyfriend Nathan. They dated three years before parting ways, and Meddy has never totally released that part of her life. Now Nathan seems to be everywhere, popping up ant time Meddy is trying to carry the body in a freezer out of the resort.

The dead body isn’t the only problem, though. There seems to be a thief at the wedding trying to steal the gifts. An gaggle of intoxicated groomsmen stumble around the venue. And the aunties can’t seem to keep their bickering to themselves. Can Meddy get rid of the dead body, confess her true feelings to Nathan, keep the groomsmen under control, calm the aunties down, and catch the thief?

The premise of this book is so outrageously fun that I couldn’t resist it! The dialogue is a mix of witty and emotional. Between the laugh-out-loud moments are plenty of moments that touched me, particularly the ones between Meddy and her mother. The aunties are the true stars of the book—Meddy may be the main character and the one I rooted for, but the aunties and their personalities were a standout part of this book. In exciting news, this is actually part of a three-book series! So expect to see more of Meddy, the aunties, and maybe even Nathan.

If you’re looking for a light hearted read that blends mystery, romance, and contemporary fiction—Dial A for Aunties is the perfect book for you to read next!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.