Title: Death by Diploma (Chalkboard Outlines #1)
Author: Kelley Kaye
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Format: eBook
Length: 250 pages
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing, LLC
Publish Date: February 23, 2016
Rating: ★★★★
Recommend: Yes

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to BookSirens for this copy.

This is the first cozy mystery novel that I’ve had the pleasure of reading… ever, I think? I know it’s definitely been a long time, and I know Kindle has a lot of cozy mysteries that I used to get when I first got a Kindle, but I never got around to reading them.

I digress.

This was a super cute introduction to the cozy mystery genre. We get introduced to our main protagonist Emma Lovett, a woman in her mid to late 20s who wanted to start over after a divorce and moves to Pinewood, Colorado to being her new career as a high school teacher. For one, it is definitely interesting that Thomas Jefferson High School decided to take her on despite her lack of practice in a real classroom – at least according to her – and she was able to make a new friend in the form of Leslie Parker, English teacher extraordinaire.

Everything was going well for the most part until – shocker – Emma comes across her first dead body on her third day of school. And so the cozy mystery really begins, and we get to follow Emma and Leslie solve the case, Nancy Drew style. Well maybe not completely like Nancy Drew, but they do definitely use her as inspiration.

Kaye did an amazing job with this novel, and I liked the charm that Emma gave to us readers. A young woman from South Carolina trying to live her life after dealing with a cheater of a husband is inspiring to those that feel like they can’t get out of a bad situation. Also, seeing the friendship blossom between Emma and Leslie so quickly when there are a lot of books that will have women pitted against one another was refreshing.

The novel was short and sweet, wrapping up everything in a sweet little bow, although for me it still sucks to know that this murder wasn’t for a “good enough” reason, if that makes sense. I know there’s a second one, so I’m curious to know what the next murder mystery is going to be about, and why they introduced something that seemed to be important, but wasn’t touched upon much in this novel. It could have been a set up for the next one? Is there going to be a lot more that we can expect from this series? We’ll find out soon, I guess.

Additional Disclaimer: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.