• Scones and Scoundrels

  • By: Molly MacRae
  • Narrated by: Lucy Paterson
  • Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (94 ratings)

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Scones and Scoundrels  By  cover art

Scones and Scoundrels

By: Molly MacRae
Narrated by: Lucy Paterson
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Publisher's summary

When Inversgail welcomes home native daughter and best-selling environmental writer Daphne Wood for her tenure as the author-in-residence for Inversgail schools, Janet Marsh and her business partners at Yon Bonnie Books look forward to hosting a book signing for her. However, Daphne's people skills have developed a few rough edges after living alone in the Canadian wilderness for years and working with her is difficult. Things only become more complicated once she arrives. That night, a young man - an American who'd spent a night in the B&B above Yon Bonnie Books - is found dead outside a pub.

Knowing that Janet and her partners solved a previous murder, Daphne tries to persuade them to help her investigate. But while she's trying to prove herself to them, she ends up dead, poisoned by scones from the Yon Bonnie Books tearoom. Now to save the reputation of their business - not to mention the reputation of their scones - Janet and her partners must solve both murders.

©2018 Molly MacRae (P)2018 Dreamscape Media, LLC

What listeners say about Scones and Scoundrels

Average customer ratings
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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Ugh... Janet Drove me Crazy!!!

I enjoyed the first book in this series, but this outing? I found the whole thing an exercise in frustration. I didn't like the story, the mystery itself was meh, and Janet's doormat personality really had me wishing she became the next victim. I'm very unhappy about this turn.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars
  • GC
  • 10-26-20

Disappointed

I like this author and have listened to a different series of hers which I enjoyed. This is the second book in the Highland Bookshop Mystery series. The first book had an amazing reader and I was sorry that changed in this book. This reader is good but not as good as the first. I always wonder why readers are changed when they have done such an amazing job and distinguished the characters so brilliantly. Its hard for me, at least, as a listener, to transfer the identity I have in my mind to a new one due to the voice.
I hate to give a scathing review even when I have quite a few criticisms, so I will only discuss one ( the reason I'm returning this book), and that is concerning a character that was introduced in this story that was so rude, obnoxious, even cruel, that I stopped multiple times thinking I couldn’t take it anymore and would just return the book. After a few hours I would start listening again thinking surely this character would change or somehow leave the story. To be fair, almost all mysteries have at least one very unpleasant character, but usually not as a main one who takes up so much of the story that you want to throw the book out the window. I don’t want to give anything away about the plot, and I will say this criticism has nothing to do with the murder mystery, so I will just say if you enjoy a TV series with people like the Housewives of (fill in your favorite), then you might like this story. If, like me, you are trying to avoid stories that include main characters who are so obnoxious that you want to scream, you might skip this one.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Need an editor...last 10min chopped

I liked the book and the narrator but there were two bothersome items. 1. Whoever edited must have been asleep during the last 10 minutes. You finally reach the climatic part of the book and the track keeps jumping...kind of wrecked the ending for me. 2. Hearing "Janet said," "Ian said," " Summer said," so the listener can distinguish who is speaking was necessary, especially with all the women characters, but the short sentences with "so and so said" repeated several sentences in a row was irritating....repetitive and in monotone for the most part. I would hesitate to buy another book from this recording studio mainly because of the skipping.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A Delightful Trip to Scotland!

The ladies of Molly MacRae's Highland Book Shoppe series are celebrating their 4- month anniversary as owners and proprietors of Yon Bonnie Books, with its accompanying Cakes and Tales tea room and B&B when the town of Inversgail welcomes its most famous native citizen, the reclusive author Daphne Woods, for a three- month visit in Scones and Scoundrels. But Daphne manages to upset just about everyone in the village before her first week is out.

The night that Daphne arrives, an American hiker gets murdered, and the quartet learns that he spent the night in their B&B four nights earlier. Somehow Daphne has heard that the women solved a murder when they first moved to Inversgail, and she gets it into her head that the women must be investigating the death, and she wants in on the case. Soon the women hear that Daphne has been spreading the word that the five have formed a partnership and are narrowing in on the identity of the murderer. Then, the night after Daphne's book signing, Janet hears frantic barking coming from the house next door, where Daphne has been staying. The neighborhood converges, along with Norman Hobbes, the local constable, on the house, only for Norman to discover the body of Daphne inside.

With two murders, the town becomes aroused, and the bookshop ladies realize that Daphne's comments about solving the murder could put them at risk from a murderer afraid they are ready to reveal the shooting. So they start to ask questions and post them in a document in the cloud that each can access. Where so many books can get tedious with characters' musings over the possibilities of the crime, the way this book has all four women challenging each other to come up with better questions prevents this boredom from occurring. In fact, the questions seem more important than the answers.

This book gripped me from the start and didn't let me go until the last second was over. I loved the fun and creative plot that kept me drawn to the book. It had so many intricate threads that get woven together so adroitly like a piece of tartan. However, unless you are paying attention, you won't notice the complexity because the pieces blend so effectively. The conclusion came as a surprise to me and left me with a smile on my face, just what a conclusion should do!

I really love the characters in this book. The four partners in the bookshop, tea room, and bed and breakfast seem to sub in and out for each other seamlessly, showing they truly have become a real team. In addition, the secondary characters have a lot of personality too, and this really adds to the fun of the book. I especially love the bookshop's assistant, Rab, with his dog, Ranger. When they enter the shop, Ranger goes straight to the fireplace and waits patiently for Rab to put a towel over one of the chairs before jumping up on it to relax while Rab works.

Another feature I really enjoy about this series is the cultural flavor. The book is filled with Gaelic terms, but it is done in such a way that we get a sense of their meaning. We also see the rain in Scotland as the women discuss the list they have made of different Gaelic terms for different styles of rain. We also get a sense of the insularity of Inversgail, where a lot of people do not care for "incomers," but whether this insularity is a Scottish phenomenon or an issue related to Inversgail's being a small village is not clear.

I thoroughly loved the performance of Lucy Paterson in the audio edition. She voices the many accents, whether of Americans, a Londoner, a Nepali, and the Scottish, very ably. Her pacing and vocal expressions contribute strongly to the enjoyment of this book.

I really loved listening to Scones and Scoundrels. This book transported me to Scotland and away from the painful realities of life, giving me a lot of pleasure in the process. I highly recommend the book, but I do recommend listening to Plaid and Plagiarism first in order to meet the owners of the book shop and their neighbors. I give this book five stars!



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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Scrumptiously good

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I love the story as a whole, but the voices and accents done for the reading made it easy to believe they were indeed in Scotland. The story was cleverly crafted to keep you on the edge of your seat and confused as to who really had "Done It". This is one of those you will find hard to put down, or in the case if an audiobook...Impossible to stop listening to until you reach the end. LOVED IT!

What other book might you compare Scones and Scoundrels to and why?

I don't compare to other books.

What about Lucy Paterson’s performance did you like?

She did the voices very well and convincingly. The added accents really helped to make the characters culture come alive.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It kept me on my toes.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Pretty good

This is a pretty good story with well developed characters but the pacing is a bit slow in the middle then picks up at the end

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Why didn't I read the reviews before buying?!

Very thin story and weak characters. I must be a sucker for the word "scones" in the title, and a sale price. Never made it past Chapter 2.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

I'd have an affair on Janet too. She's awful.

She is the worst thing about this book series. I hoped she'd be less offensive and annoying in Book 2...but no. Janet is a garbage character here too. Her personality is bad, and her actions ridiculous.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Anxious for the next book

Looking forward to the next book in the series as the first two were wonderful

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Love this author's books

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. It's a real escape into another world.

What did you like best about this story?

This book really immerses the reader in life in a small Scottish town.

What about Lucy Paterson’s performance did you like?

The narrator was excellent. She moved seamlessly between Midwestern and Scottish accents, not to mention male and female characters.

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