Book Review: Little Bookshop of Murder by Maggie Blackburn

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook from Crooked Lane Books, via #Netgalley, free of charge, for review purposes on this blog. No compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it, all opinions are my own

A Shakespearean scholar inherits a beachside bookshop--and a murder mystery--in this delightful new cozy series for fans of Kate Carlisle and Ellery Adams.

Synopsis:

Summer Merriweather's career as a Shakespeare professor hangs by a bookbinder's thread. Academic life at her Virginia university is a viper's pit, so Summer spends her summer in England, researching a scholarly paper that, with any luck, will finally get her published, impress the Dean, and save her job. But her English idyll ends when her mother, Hildy, shuffles off her mortal coil from an apparent heart attack.

Returning to Brigid's Island, NC, for the funeral, Summer is impatient to settle the estate, sell her mom's embarrassingly romance-themed bookstore, Beach Reads, and go home. But as she drops by Beach Reads, Summer finds threatening notes addressed to Hildy: "Sell the bookstore or die."

Clearly, something is rotten on Brigid's Island. What method is behind the madness? Was Hildy murdered? The police insist there's not enough evidence to launch a murder investigation. Instead, Summer and her Aunt Agatha screw their courage to the sticking place and start sleuthing, with the help of Hildy's beloved book club. But there are more suspects on Brigid's Island than are dreamt of in the Bard's darkest philosophizing. And if Summer can't find the villain, the town will be littered with a Shakespearean tragedy's worth of corpses--including her own.

Review:

This is book 1 of this new series, and it's off to a rollicking start! The reader can really relate to Hildy- how a social post was the start of a chaotic end of semester early for her, and how she has no idea if she will still have a job, so a sabbatical in England? GREAT! but then to get called back because of your mother's untimely death? You might feel like you had a curs eon you. But for Hildy there are more surprises and secrets in store! The book does a great job introducing what will I;m sure become the central figures in the new series, and as the book evolves, the reader becomes attached and looking for that cozy mystery happy ending. But will Hildy get one? All signs point to no, and you won't find out if this keeps to the traditional route or not, until you read this fun book! Definitely a fun beach/Summer read!

About the Author:

Maggie Blackburn is the author of the Cora Crafts mysteries and the Cumberland Creek mysteries under another pen name. Her books have been selected as finalists for an Agatha Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award and as Top 10 Beach Reads by Woman's World. The mother of two young women who are off following their dreams in the music business, she resides in Waynesboro, Virginia.

Christa Lewis is a classically trained actress who graduated from Boston University. She got her start in voice acting at the international television station DW-TV, and she has been a regular on hundreds of cartoons, museum guides, documentaries, and commercials. Now a full-time audiobook narrator with over sixty titles to her credit, she has been featured in AudioFile Magazine, has earned multiple Earphones Awards, and is an Audible bestselling narrator. She lives in Los Angeles.