The Expectant Detectives

August 1, 2023

Excited to have moved to a quaint village with partner Joe and expecting their first child, Alice is upended when a dead body is discovered at her prenatal class and she and her classmates are deemed suspects. So they join forces (along with Alice's rambunctious dog, Helen) to discover the culprit. Cotswolds-based Ailes, who works in publishing as an editor, was short-listed for the Comedy Women in Print Prize for the opening chapters of this debut; with a 100,000-copy first printing. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 23, 2023
Ailes’s witty debut opens with Alice and her boyfriend, Joe, deciding to move from London to a small town in the Cotswolds two weeks before Alice’s due date. Utterly unprepared for their imminent parenthood, the pair attend a local birthing class, where one of the students delivers her child mid-class. Chaos reigns as fellow students attempt to help the new mother, so no one is sure who was (or wasn’t) in the room when Mr. Oliver, owner of the herb shop downstairs, keeled over dead. What at first appears to be a natural death turns out to be a case of poisoned tea, and before long, Alice has teamed up with a group of other women from the birthing class to investigate. They make a surprisingly effective sleuthing team, sussing out Mr. Oliver’s many secrets by relying on their individual strengths. As the soon to be mothers turn up evidence that the town has been host to a string of suspicious deaths, they receive threats aimed at slowing their investigation. Meanwhile, Alice notices that Joe has been acting strangely, and fears how close to home the group’s inquiry might get. Full of charming characters, including Alice’s goofy dog, this fast-paced, original cozy is great fun. A sequel would be welcome.

December 1, 2023
Murder at a prenatal class turns moms-to-be into sleuths. An unexpected but not unwelcome pregnancy sends Londoners Alice and Joe to the Cotswold village of Penton in search of a quieter and less expensive place to welcome their imminent arrival. Penton's "posh hippy" vibe intrigues but intimidates the couple, who revel in the town's lush landscape but have to sleep on an air mattress because their bed won't fit up the narrow staircase in their tiny cottage. Hoping to learn enough to get through the life-changing event that's now less than a month off, they sign up for a prenatal crash course; the class will meet in three sessions over two weekends in the upstairs room of Nature's Way, a shop catering to folks who want to replace their wind chimes or buy a few dozen new dream catchers. Dot, the class leader, believes anyone can give birth comfortably using no painkiller stronger than willow bark tea. Her approach is put to the test when Alice's fellow student Hen goes into labor during the second session and welcomes her new daughter between screams of agony. Hen's delivery, however, isn't the evening's headliner. Paramedics who arrive to offer Hen some modern medical care inform the prenatal students that there's a "dead guy downstairs" in the shop. The police confirm that while Hen was loudly giving birth upstairs, the store's owner, Crispin Oliver, quietly expired downstairs, and apparently not of natural causes. Alice and Hen join forces with steady Poppy and volatile Ailsa, their fellow students, to learn who would dispatch a gentle shopkeeper whose besetting sin was to offer slippery elm bark tea to expectant moms who'd really rather have a beer. Pointed banter between the heroine and pretty much everyone else keeps this debut sharp.

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Starred review from December 2, 2023

DEBUT Ailes knocks it out of the park with this humorous debut. Alice and her partner Joe want to raise their soon-to-be-born child away from the hustle and bustle of London, so they move to the idyllic countryside in the Cotswolds. All is not as calm and serene as hoped, however. Alice finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation when a dead body is discovered at a prenatal class she's attending. Together with the other three moms from the class, as well as her rambunctious, goofy canine companion Helen, Alice and her band of pregnant sleuths begin their own investigation. Ailes is one to watch. Her book is filled with witty banter, a quirky cast of characters (including a gong bath priestess and hippie commune members), several plot twists. VERDICT Readers of Darci Hannah will enjoy Helen's spotlight in this series. The humor is akin to Elle Cosimano's Finlay Donovan series, and the relationship between Joe and Alice is reminiscent of Jules Capshaw's romantic endeavors in Ellie Alexander's "Bakeshop Mysteries."--Katy Duperry

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January 1, 2024
Alice and her boyfriend, Joe, are nervous expectant parents, and their first move toward a better life for their new family is to a cottage in the Cotswolds. Penton is a quiet village, full of posh, new age-y stores and even boasts a full-fledged, self-sustaining commune in the woods. Alice is worried she won't fit in, but she manages to make new friends at her prenatal class: Poppy and her wife, Lin, whose dogs get along well with Alice's less-than-clever dog, Helen, and perfect Hen with her degree in forensic biology. Then there's a murder, which happens at the class while Hen is giving birth. Bored with her maternity leave (and hoping to avoid being a suspect), Alice, who is eight months pregnant, decides to investigate with the help of her new friends. Then Helen is poisoned (not fatally), something is afoot at the commune, and Alice gets in trouble for considering disposable nappies. Witty, bright, and with an unexpected twist ending, Ailes' debut mystery will appeal to fans of British comedies and cozy mysteries.

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