Purchased at Miami's library book sale for BookCrossing. Now heading into the bookbox.

Taken from the bookish book box

I had held off reading this because I hadn't cared for the books I had read in this author's other series Cupcake Bakery Mysteries. I really enjoyed this book. I've been in a bit of a reading slump the past year and a half with the stress of the current state of the world due to the pandemic and work as a teacher to young children during these times. This was a book that captured my attention. Thanks for sharing it Azuki!

This will be headed out in the Bookish book box.

The Bookish book box is getting ready to travel again, which means that I have to journal all the ones that came back last year and determine if some have gone too many rounds and need to be pulled. This book made the cut and will go out in the new round.

This book is now in the Bookish Book Box and is off on a tour of the US, hopefully to find a new home along the way.

Any future reader or recipient of this book is encouraged to leave a journal entry here on the BookCrossing site to let prior readers know the fate of the book. You can make an anonymous entry without joining the BookCrossing movement, but if you are interested in joining, it is a free and spam-free community where your contact information is not shared with others. Best of all, members receive private messages via e-mail from books like this one when those books are journaled, allowing for long-term relationships between books and readers.

Found in the Bookish / Books about Books bookbox! Releasing back into the box.

I've read this one so I'm leaving it in the box, but wanted to add my comments.

I first discovered this series via A Likely Story, which I read via a book group. This is the first in the series, introducing the characters and setup.

I enjoyed this book quite a lot, but I liked the later book better; this seems to be a series that improves with time, a good sign. This book's still quite fun, though it does suffer from the amateur-detective's standard flaw: the tendency to avoid calling the police while busily blundering into the path of a murderer. But, heck, if they didn't try to investigate, there'd be no story - and in this case the obstructive and clueless local sheriff wouldn't be my first choice when calling for help either.

I liked the character interactions, the rather charming seaside setting, and the many book-related quips - it's fun to see fictional characters cheerfully debating their favorite books, quoting the characters, and recommending titles. And when they're talking about books I like - Rebecca, for example - or those I've just discovered, as in Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea - it adds to the fun.

The mystery here centers around the bloody murder of an admittedly unlikeable character - though, to the author's credit, she makes Beth (the character closest to the victim) show believable levels of shock at the discovery. Much as we might think that someone obnoxious deserves to die, it isn't the same thing as seeing them actually dead... The plot itself is a bit twisty, and parts of it struck me as rather unlikely in this day and age, but when I like the setting, characters, and writing style I don't mind a few plotholes.

I also enjoyed the librarian elements, which ring very true; there are the delightful bits, leading eager patrons to new titles or solving a tricky reference question, but there are also the days when the patrons are demanding, huffy, and a bit thick, the kids are noisy and destructive, and some malefactor's decided to camp out in the stacks with lit cigarettes (or worse). I got a kick out of such things as the mistaken-identity scene, when someone meeting our heroines for the first time goes through the "You don't look like a librarian" bit. And when "the lemon" - dour Ms. Cole, who really *does* look like a stereotypical librarian - saves the day in a very timely and dramatic manner, I had to cheer. You do NOT want to mess with a librarian!

Selected from the Bookish BookBox (in memory of MaryZee) .

A cozy mystery whose main character is a small town librarian set in a coastal town. Lindsey is the perfect librarian who finds herself helping another librarian, Beth, when Beth's boyfriend ends up getting murdered. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.