Verdict: A genuinely funny Australian cozy mystery with a very good ice queen in it — and a romance so light that five separate readers went out of their way to warn you about it.
Best for: Readers who want a murder mystery first and a slow, chaste, prickly attraction second, and who like their small towns eccentric and their chickens territorial.
Heat level: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5 — romance.io bands it 3/5 “Open door” from seven ratings; a detailed reader account reports one light sex scene in a 100,000-word book)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.7/5 — a 3.93 Goodreads average across 664 ratings, the widest platform gap in this cluster against a 4.5 on Amazon, and marked down because the romance readers were promised is barely present)
Tropes: Cozy mystery, ice queen, grumpy and sunshine, small coastal town, opposites attract, amateur sleuths, Australian setting, large ensemble cast, slow and very light romance.
What Is A Curious Woman About?
A Curious Woman is Jess Lea’s first full-length novel, published by Ylva Publishing on 2 April 2019 and now book one of the three-part Murder Under the Gum Trees series on Amazon. It runs about 100,000 words — 304 pages in the Kindle edition — and it is set in Port Bannir, a windswept coastal town in Australia where almost everybody is slightly ridiculous and one of them is a murderer.
Bess Campbell has moved there to start again, and is doing it with a hip gallery, a tiny house, a stack of self-improvement books and some aggressive chickens. Margaret Gale runs the town’s austere maritime museum and her staff with equal severity, and has no patience for Bess, her gallery or her bicycle. Their first real encounter is an argument about an antique collectible dildo. Then someone is murdered, both women are implicated, and they have to cooperate.
The numbers tell a story of their own, and it is the most interesting thing about this book’s reception. Goodreads has it at 3.93 across 664 ratings with 155 written reviews. Amazon has it at 4.5 across 205, with a histogram of 66 percent five stars, 25 percent four, 9 percent three and nothing at all below. That is a gap of well over half a star between two audiences reading the same book — the widest we have measured in this cluster — and it is not noise. It is two different sets of expectations meeting the same novel.
It is on Kindle Unlimited, verified on the Amazon listing on 20 August 2026.
What Makes This Sapphic Cozy Mystery Work
The writing. This is the one thing nobody argues about. The reviewer who gave it 3.25 stars and disliked most of the book’s choices says flatly that the writing itself was good. A reader who found it hard going opens her bullet-point verdict with the observation that Jess Lea writes very well. A five-star ARC reader quotes an approving maxim about making every sentence worth reading. When detractors and enthusiasts agree on the prose, the prose is real.
The humour is the second thing. Multiple readers use the same vocabulary — quirky, dark, witty — and the tone stays light despite the corpse. Reviewers describe the cast as over the top yet grounded enough to be real, which is exactly the register a cozy mystery needs and is harder to hit than it looks. An argument about an antique collectible dildo as the leads’ meet-hostile is a good indication of what you are in for.
And the mystery works as a mystery. Readers report not guessing the culprit and being kept guessing, which is the actual job. One says the story does not begin as a mystery and grows into one, which is a structural choice worth knowing about but not a flaw.
Margaret is the draw. romance.io readers tag the book grumpy/ice queen more than any other trope, and the ice queen here is a museum director with a harpoon in the opening line rather than a CEO in a glass office. That is a more interesting version of the archetype than the shelf usually supplies.
Book Synopsis
Bess Campbell has relocated to Port Bannir on the Australian coast to rebuild her life, and is throwing herself into it — a contemporary gallery, a small house, several chickens with strong opinions, and a self-help regime. Margaret Gale has run the town’s maritime museum for years, keeps her staff in line by force of personality, and regards Bess and everything she stands for as an irritant.
Their mutual contempt is well established by the time the town is shaken by a murder — and by the time both of them are among the people it could plausibly be pinned on. Clearing themselves means working together, which means spending time in each other’s company, which turns out to be a more complicated proposition than either expected.
My Review
If you take one thing from this review, take this: A Curious Woman is a cozy mystery with a romance in it, not a romance with a mystery in it, and the difference is the entire reason for the ratings gap.
Five separate readers in a thirty-review sample raise the same point unprompted. One says there is no or very light romance and counts a single light sex scene. One describes a very slight romance between an ice-queen-ish character and a bohemian free spirit. One went in blind and was surprised to find this was not just an F/F romance but a cozy mystery. One says there was very little amount of romance. One says the romance is very light and she was missing chemistry. A sixth calls it a romance which does not look at all like a romance but arrives at the idea of a happy ending. That is not a minority reservation; that is the book’s defining characteristic, and the publisher’s own copy hints at it with the phrase “a sweet serve of lesbian romance” — a serve being, notably, a portion.
Read that way, the Amazon rating makes sense. Amazon shelves this in LGBTQ+ Mystery and sells it to people who want a mystery; they give it 4.5 and no ratings below three stars. Goodreads reaches a much larger sapphic-romance readership, many of them through Ylva’s ARC programme, and they give it 3.93 with 39 ratings at two stars or below. Same book, different promise.
The other consistent criticism is the cast. Several readers report getting confused — one says she usually loses track when there are this many players, another describes leaping forward hundreds of pages and finding herself lost. Two readers independently say the characters are not very likeable, and one ties that directly to not caring how the romance turned out. A cozy mystery can carry a large eccentric ensemble; it cannot carry one you cannot tell apart.
What is left is very good. The prose is the best I have read on this page. Margaret is a properly written difficult woman. The town is funny in a specific, Australian, faintly grim way. And the mystery keeps its secret. If those are the things you want, the low Goodreads average is telling you about other readers’ expectations, not about the book’s quality.
How Spicy Is A Curious Woman?
Low, and the reader evidence is more specific than the aggregator.
romance.io bands the steam at 3 of 5, “Open door”, from seven ratings — a thin sample by that site’s standards. Against it: a reader who wrote a detailed numbered breakdown of the book reports one light sex scene, and five readers describe the romance itself as very light or barely present. I Heart SapphFic’s entry for this title would not load for us on the day of writing.
Our reading is two out of five. There is a sex scene, it is not fade-to-black, and it is one scene in a hundred thousand words. If you are choosing this book for heat, choose something else — and if you were avoiding it for heat, you have no reason to.
Who Should Read This Book?
Read it if you want a cozy mystery. That is the honest recommendation. Read it if a funny, slightly bleak Australian coastal town with a large cast of oddballs sounds like a pleasure rather than a chore. Read it for Margaret, who is the best-drawn ice queen on our enemies-to-lovers page and nothing like the corporate default. And read it if you want to keep going — it is book one of three, with A Curious Visit and A Curious Journey both published.
Do not read it for the romance. Five readers said so before we did. Do not read it if you need a small, easily held cast. And do not expect the enemies-to-lovers arc to run the way it does elsewhere on that page; the hostility is real and funny, but the resolution is quiet and comes late.
On content: nothing is enumerated on the Amazon listing, and romance.io carries no reader-added content warnings for this title at all. The book turns on a murder and its aftermath in a small community, and reviewers describe the treatment as light in tone despite the subject. That is an absence of reports rather than an all-clear.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)
Our thirty-review Goodreads sample splits six five-star, fourteen four-star, nine three-star and one one-star — an unusually flat, four-star-heavy shape. Across all 664 ratings the pattern holds: 289 four-star ratings against 188 five-star, which is the signature of a book people like rather than love. Amazon, reaching a mystery-first audience, produces the opposite shape entirely.
The praise is for the prose, the humour and the puzzle. Readers describe dark humour running through the whole thing, witty exchanges between the leads, a cast that is over the top and somehow still grounded, and a culprit they did not see coming. Several mention the setting with real affection.
The criticism is threefold and consistent: the romance is too slight for readers who came for one, the cast is too large to keep straight, and the leads are not especially likeable. The single one-star review is a matter of taste rather than craft — the reader knew from the opening sentence that this book was not for her, and says so without malice.
Discovery here runs through the publisher rather than social media. Ylva Publishing distributed ARCs and several sampled reviews disclose them; one reviewer says she came to the book because Lee Winter mentioned it, which is how a mid-list sapphic press actually moves books. We found no trade coverage. The book’s Amazon sales rank is deep — past a million in the Kindle Store overall — so the Kindle Unlimited listing is not where its readership lives; the audiobook and the publisher’s own channels are.
Prefer audio? Listen to A Curious Woman on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores. It is narrated by Cat Gould, published by Tantor Media, and runs eleven hours and forty-three minutes. For a book whose main problem is keeping a large ensemble straight, a single narrator giving each of them a distinct voice is a real advantage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is A Curious Woman actually a romance?
Only partly. Five readers in our thirty-review sample describe the romance as very light or barely present, and one reports a single light sex scene across roughly 100,000 words. Amazon shelves it in LGBTQ+ Mystery. There is an attraction, it develops, and it resolves — but the murder is the plot.
How explicit is it?
Low. romance.io bands it 3/5 “Open door” from seven ratings; the more detailed reader account reports one light scene. We put it at 2/5.
Why is the Goodreads rating so much lower than the Amazon one?
Because the two platforms sell it to different people. Goodreads reaches a sapphic-romance readership expecting a romance and returns 3.93 across 664 ratings. Amazon files it under LGBTQ+ Mystery and returns 4.5 across 205, with nothing below three stars. The gap is about expectation, not quality.
Is it a standalone?
It works as one — the murder is solved and the relationship resolves — and it is also book one of three. A Curious Visit and A Curious Journey complete the Murder Under the Gum Trees series, and both are on Amazon.
Is there an audiobook?
Yes — narrated by Cat Gould, published by Tantor Media, eleven hours forty-three minutes, and available on Libro.fm.
Is it on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes — verified on the Amazon listing on 20 August 2026. Kindle Unlimited availability is the publisher’s to change, so check the listing before you plan around it.
If You Loved A Curious Woman, Read These Next
If it was the mystery you wanted, An Exclusive Game is the suspense-forward pick on this site — much darker, much hotter, and only half a story. If it was the prickly professional woman, Beyond the Blue pairs an ice-queen medical examiner with a warm detective and gives the romance the space this book does not. And On the Same Page is the quiet, funny, character-led option if the tone is what appealed. More in our enemies-to-lovers Kindle Unlimited list and across all our book reviews.
The Bottom Line
A Curious Woman is better written than its Goodreads average suggests and less romantic than its placement implies. Jess Lea can write, Margaret Gale is a genuinely good character, Port Bannir is funny, and the murder plot does its job without telegraphing the answer. What it is not is a romance, and five readers took the trouble to say so — which is why a book Amazon’s mystery readers rate at 4.5 sits at 3.93 with a sapphic-romance crowd. Go in wanting a cozy mystery with a slow, dry, very light attraction running underneath it and you will have a good time. It is on Kindle Unlimited, and there are two more.
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, A Curious Woman ranks as a well-written, genuinely funny Australian cozy mystery with an excellent ice queen and a strong sense of place — mis-sold as a romance, carrying a cast several readers could not keep straight, and best approached by people who want the murder more than the kiss.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.7/5
- ✓ 3.93 average across 664 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ 4.5 on Amazon across 205, nothing below three stars
- ✓ Published by Ylva, with a full three-book series behind it
- ✓ The widest platform rating gap we have measured in this cluster
Romance ★★★☆☆ 2.8/5
- ✓ The ice queen and sunshine dynamic is sharply written
- ✓ The hostility is funny and specific rather than generic
- ✓ Five readers independently call the romance very light or absent
- ✓ One reader reports missing the chemistry entirely
Characters ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5
- ✓ Margaret is a properly built difficult woman
- ✓ The ensemble is over the top yet grounded, per one reviewer
- ✓ Two readers say the leads are not very likeable
- ✓ Several report losing track of a large cast
Writing ★★★★☆ 4.3/5
- ✓ Detractors and enthusiasts both praise the prose
- ✓ Dark humour sustained across a 100,000-word book
- ✓ Strong, unusual sense of an Australian coastal place
- ✓ Structure confused some readers mid-book
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 3.5/5
- ✓ The humour lands consistently for most readers
- ✓ The mystery keeps readers guessing to the end
- ✓ Four-star ratings outnumber five-star on Goodreads
- ✓ Readers who wanted the romance came away unmoved
Heat Level ★★☆☆☆ 2/5
- ✓ There is an on-page sex scene; it is not fade-to-black
- ✓ romance.io bands it 3/5 “Open door” from seven ratings
- ✓ A detailed reader account reports one light scene
- ✓ Heat is not what any reviewer is here for
Ending ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ The mystery resolves and the culprit surprises
- ✓ One reviewer says it wraps everything up nicely
- ✓ The relationship reaches a happy ending
- ✓ The same reviewer was disappointed by how it got there
Re-read Value ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5
- ✓ The humour survives a second pass
- ✓ An eleven-hour audiobook is a genuine second format
- ✓ Two sequels continue the series
- ✓ A mystery loses most of its force once solved
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