Read time: 3 minutes
📱📖 Read on Kobo | 📃 384 pages | ⏱️ ~4 hours
🏷️ Publisher: Dutton | 📅 Release Date: May 5, 2026
✨ ARC provided by NetGalley
Book Blurb:
In A Zoom with a View, debut author Jess Cannon takes us to Blue Oak, a small Texas town filled with charm, hair spray, and one very dead realtor. Leo, freshly returned from New York with a stalled academic career and a complicated relationship with her beauty queen mother, finds herself photographing homes for her godmother’s real estate agency. But things turn dark when Leo discovers the body of Chaz, a rival realtor and local influencer. With a snarky Reddit page linking her and her best friend to the victim, Leo must clear her name and protect her found family, all while uncovering her mother’s deeply held secrets.
Let’s talk … murder!!!
The concept behind A Zoom with a View is genuinely strong and exactly the kind of setup that cozy mystery readers tend to gravitate toward. A small-town bully turned influencer, a murder tied to real estate rivalries, and a found-family circle rallying together to protect one of their own makes for an engaging foundation. Once the mystery kicked in, I found myself flying through the pages and easily finishing the book in record time.
One element that didn’t quite land for me was the heavy emphasis on Leo being a photographer without that skill ever truly impacting the investigation. Given the title, I expected photography to play a more meaningful role, whether through clues, images, or perspective, but it mostly remained background detail rather than a storytelling tool. The mother’s big secret also overstayed its welcome. While I understand the intention to build suspense, by the time the reveal came (literally in the final pages), the reaction didn’t fully ring true for me emotionally. The final stretch of the book dragged a bit, and the cliffhanger ending may divide readers depending on their tolerance for unresolved threads.
Still, Cannon’s voice sparkles. Her sense of humor, her pacing once the plot kicks in, and her small-town details all sing with potential. For a debut, this one is full of promise, and I’ll absolutely be keeping an eye out for what she writes next. I mean, there’s a cliffhanger I need to find resolution for!
Would I recommend it?
A cozy mystery with small-town drama, witty banter, and a murder to untangle. While the pacing and some unresolved elements didn’t fully work for me, the core idea and writing style show a lot of promise. For a debut novel, this is a confident start, and I’d absolutely be interested in picking up the next book to see where the story goes.
Other similar books:
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Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy - Death by Bubble Tea by Jennifer J. Chow – Cozy mystery with a fun L.A. twist and foodie flair.
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Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy - Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto – Found family and unconventional sleuthing
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Small Town, Big Secrets
Do unresolved family mysteries make you more invested in a cozy series, or do you prefer everything wrapped up neatly by the final chapter? Let’s talk in the comments.
Book Links:
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