How To Book A Murder
To help save her family’s floundering Colorado bookstore, Starlit Bookshop, newly minted Ph.D., turned bookseller, event planner, Emma Starrs agrees to plan a mystery-themed dinner party for her wealthy, well-connected high school classmate Tabitha Baxter. It’s a delightful evening of cocktails and conjecture until Tabitha’s husband, Tip, hosting the affair in the guise of Edgar Allan Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin, winds up murdered.
In a heartbeat, Emma and her aunt Nora, a famous mystery writer, become suspects. Emma is sure the party’s over for Starlit events until celebrated author Calliope Nightfall, whose gothic sensibilities are intrigued by the circumstances, implores the bookseller to create a Poe-themed launch event for her latest tome. Throwing a bash to die for while searching for additional clues is already enough to drive Emma stark raving mad, but another shocking crime soon reveals that Silvercrest has not yet reached the final chapter of the puzzling case.
Someone in this charming artistic community has murder on the mind, and if Emma cannot outwit the killer, she and her beloved aunt will land behind bars to walk free nevermore.
The Details
Series: A Starlit Bookshop Mystery – Book #1
Author: Cynthia Kuhn
Genre/Category: Cozy – Amateur Sleuth/Bookshop
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
ISBN: 1643858599
Page Count: 336
Rating: 
The Review
How To Book A Murder is the debut novel in the new “A Starlit Bookshop Mystery” series. Set in a small-town family bookshop, with characters that are completely different from one another, with strong community and family ties, this book was a nice beginning to a series I hope continues. Emma is doing what she can as an event planner and bookseller to keep the family business alive. It may not be as easy as she had thought with the accusation of being a murderer hanging over her head.
Emma has come home after completing her Ph.D. to help keep the family bookshop running. Her sister has done a remarkable job, but things have changed, and the family and the shop need to change as well. This means taking on the job of event planner and general helper. When old school rivalries enter the picture, and a body turns up, Emma has to find a way to save herself, and her aunt Nora who is being accused of the crime, and the bookshop from turning into just a memory.
It’s funny how school issues when we are young can sometimes come back to us when we are older. Those old rivalries still can make us act like sixteen-year-olds at times. Unfortunately, Emma needs to have a more mature outlook on life to get past the trauma of the mean girls from school, save her family’s bookshop, and solve a murder. All delightful additions to the plot. But this is not to say that the story does not have some minor issues; all new series must have room to grow. There are a few too many suspects in this story for my liking. Motives seem to hop out at the reader at every turn, and the killer’s motive isn’t really known or even hinted at until the end of the book; this can be a sticking point for many readers. The investigation into the victim(s) murder(s) seems slow and needlessly complicated. The reveal of the killer feels forced and not a proper resolution.
How To Book A Murder is an enjoyable first book that leaves a lot of room for growth and expansion. The minor issues I had with the story will eventually work themselves out with each subsequent installment. The Starlit bookshop, I hope, stays a feature in this series, and I would love to get more background on Emma’s family and her own life before she returned to her hometown to help run and be the main event planner for the shop. Overall, I feel that readers will enjoy this book, and I look forward to seeing where the author takes the next one and the series.
The Author
Cynthia Kuhn writes the Lila Maclean Academic Mysteries and the Starlit Bookshop Mysteries. Her work has also appeared in Mystery Most Edible, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Literary Mama, Copper Nickel, Prick of the Spindle, Mama Ph.D., and other publications.
Originally from upstate New York, she lives in Colorado with her family. She is a professor of English at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, where she teaches literature, writing, and film.
In addition, she is past president of Sisters in Crime-Colorado and a current national board member. Other memberships include Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Short Mystery Fiction Society, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Colorado Authors League, and the multi-author blog Chicks on the Case.
Another recommended book and series similar to, How To Book A Murder is the “A Mystery Bookshop Mystery” series by V.M. Burns, the latest addition, Killer Words.
Represented by: The Seymour Agency
Contact Cynthia: 
Find Cynthia on Social Media:
Contact The Cozy Review
Leave a Reply