Review of The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

In 2022, I read (and had mixed feelings about) The Maid by Nita Prose, some of which I discussed in my Spoiler Discussion Post. Imagine my surprise to discover that the book has a 2023 sequel, The Mystery Guest. So I decided to take a look and give you my honest assessment. Check out My Review of The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose.

The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid #2) by Nita Prose

Jen’s Quick Take on the Mystery Guest

• Takes the narrative (partly) out of the Regency Grand Hotel with a flashback to Molly’s childhood
• Juan Manuel is also out of the picture (which might disappoint you if you enjoy their romance)
• Published on November 28, 2023
• I received an advance copy of the book from the publisher for review.
• I read The Mystery Guest in November 2023.

The Mystery Guest is book two in The “Molly the Maid” series by Nita Prose. I didn’t review the first book, but based on popular demand from readers, I decided to do a Spoiler Discussion Post on The Maid. If you have forgotten the events of book one, you might want to take a quick look at that post to refresh your memory on the characters and the plot.

I can see on Goodreads that I am not the only reader surprised that this book inspired a series.

The Maid was a cute cozy mystery with a quirky main character. To me, The Maid read like a cross between the game of Clue and the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

In the first installment, Molly, a hotel maid who is “special” in unspecified ways, users her keen observational skills to solve the murder of one of the hotel guests.

I didn’t really see where The Maid could go as a series. How many murders can happen in one hotel before no one wants to stay there anymore? (Apparently at least two!)

Surprise! I liked The Mystery Guest more than expected

I decided that I am both right and wrong about The Mystery Guest. While I still don’t feel like this book has great series potential, I liked The Mystery Guest much more than The Maid.

First off, while the murder does take place at the hotel, the book also moves much of the action to the past, where Molly (as a child) and her grandmother are working in the home of famous, cranky, and reclusive mystery writer J.D. Grimthorpe.

To me, this shift in time and place was fun and gave The Mystery Guest some new avenues to explore. Molly was EXTREMELY close to her grandmother, from whom she got an almost pathological love of cleaning. In my Spoiler Review, many reader agreed with me that Molly seems on the autism spectrum, but as someone with diagnosed OCD, I feel like maybe there could be little of that in Molly’s psychological make-up.

I also thought the mystery in The Mystery Guest was a better-crafted one than in The Maid.

Finally, the humor in The Mystery Guest, which involved some groupies of author J.D. Grimthorpe and a new character named Angela, was more my speed.

Opinions on The Mystery Guest are pretty divided among my Goodreads friends and followers.

Some found the book dull and missed all the elements of the first book, while others, like me, liked this book better.

I think you will like the Mystery Guest if you:

• Are ready to move out of the Regency Grand Hotel (which I can now prove is in Canada!)
• Aren’t that into Molly’s romance with Juan Manuel
• Don’t mind being dragged into Molly’s past and
• Are okay hearing a LOT more about Molly’s relationship with Gran

You may not enjoy The Mystery Guest as much as The Maid if you:

• Were heavily invested in all the characters from the first book
• Loved the hotel setting
• Have had enough of Gran’s cleaning sayings
• Want more Molly in the present, not the past

Give me your thoughts in comments. Did you read the first book, did you like it, and are you planning to read this one?