Review: A Proposal to Die For by Molly Harper

 

A Proposal to Die For by Molly Harper

Publication Date: April 8th 2025 by Berkley

Pages: 343

Source: Publisher

Rating: ★★★½

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Libro.fm | Audible | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

Jessamine Bricker organizes unique proposals, and her business is doing well. However, her apartment along with its office space is about to be sold and rent in Nashville could put her under. So, when Diana, an acquaintance from high school, wants to hire her so that her boyfriend, Trenton Tillard the Fourth, can get his proposal right she reluctantly agrees. Jess would rather have said no since Diana was part of the mean-girl crowd, but the money could give her the down payment she needs to buy the building.

 

Trenton decides he wants a destination proposal and so they head up to the Golden Ash, a remote Appalachia spa. The place is beautiful and luxurious with private villas and spa treatments, but Diana and her wedding planner are less than desirable company. Diana is a lot of drama and then to add to Jess’s troubles, she discovers one of the guests dead on the property. Was it an accident or murder? Is Jess or her party in danger?

 

Jess sets about doing some amateur sleuthing while tending to Diana’s never-ending drama. Along the way she makes friends with the Osbournes, the family that runs the spa. Jess ends up running into Dean Osbourne, the brilliant but prickly chef over and over.

 

A Proposal to Die For was an entertaining cozy mystery with Molly Harper’s signature fun shenanigans, but I was a little frustrated with Jess in parts. I wish she would’ve stood up for herself with Diana more, taken less risks and been less dense in the end. Still, things wrap up satisfyingly and there was even a bit of romance that made me smile. 

3.5 Stars

Book Description:

A fast-paced, witty, and delightful new mystery about a marriage proposal planner whose biggest job yet is threatened by a dead body (or two).

Jessamine Bricker loves a plan. Contingency plans and pros-and-cons lists are her love language, and because of that, her proposal planning business is thriving. But with rent costs rising at her office building, Jess jumps at the chance to plan a proposal between her snobby high school classmate, Diana, and her very wealthy boyfriend, Trenton Tillard…the Fourth.

Roped into joining Diana’s ”pre-bridal” retreat at the exclusive Golden Ash resort, Jess hopes to fade into the background, get some work done, and maybe find some time to unwind. Their first day is anything but relaxing: Diana is furious about the mountain spa’s lack of cell phone reception, the couple next door argues constantly, and Jess swears she just saw a drug deal go down. To top it all off, she’s warned to stay out of the woods by the gruff and sexy chef, Dean Osbourne. Is this a retreat or a horror movie?

As Jess tries to do her job while placating the bride-to-be and her increasingly over-the-top demands, she spends more and more time with the resort owners, finding herself much more in tune with the laid-back Osbourne family than her social climbing “boss.” Between a meditation garden-related drowning and Jess’s discovery of a body in a sauna, it's clear that deadly secrets abound at the Golden Ash. Now it’s up to Jess to unravel the mysteries here in the mountains—before all her plans are cancelled…permanently.