Murder on the Poets Walk
As Jane eagerly anticipates the wedding of her best friend Eloise Alcott, Storyton Hall is overrun with poets in town to compete for a coveted greeting card contract. They’re everywhere, scrawling verses on cocktail napkins in the reading rooms or seeking inspiration strolling the Poet’s Walk, a series of trails named after famous authors. But the Tennyson Trail leads to a grim surprise: a woman’s corpse drifting in a rowboat on a lake, posed as if she were “The Lady of Shallot.”
When a second body is discovered, also posed as a poetic character, a recurring MO emerges. Fortunately, Jane is well versed in sleuthing and won’t rest until she gives the killer a taste of poetic justice.
The Details
Series: A Book Retreat Mystery – Book #8
Author: Ellery Adams
Genre/Category: Cozy – Amateur Sleuth/B&B
Publisher: Kensington Cozies
ISBN: 149672948X
Page Count: 352
Rating: 
The Review
What can go wrong with holding a greeting card context at Storyton Hall and hosting a group of talented poets? Murder, that’s what! Murder on the Poets Walk is the latest book in the “Book Retreat Mystery” series, and even though it has the same feel as all the others, it stands a bit apart. When someone begins killing poets, the reader definitely gets the implied prose if they read poetry.
Jane can be a tough character to like. She seems judgemental of most things, but her love of her children, her aunt and uncle, and everyone who works at Storyton Hall makes her attractive. The hall is a perfect place to hold any type of literary contest and seems to lend itself to a greeting card with its picturesque setting. Putting any group of writers together in one place for more than a day or two can have explosive results, sometimes good and other times not good. Poets can make an explosive situation turn into an outright world-ending war. Or at least that is the way it feels. Having one of them as a murderer is a delightful way to use their emotional outpouring.
There are plenty of suspects when the greeting card context turns deadly. Not just poets but also the people running the contest and perhaps an outsider or two. There is also some heartwarming family drama to make everything move along and feel vital to the plot. The evidence points all over the place, and readers need to pay close attention to detail in order to find the killer. Other characters are enjoyable, but none more so than Jane’s sons. They are every mother’s dream children. I loved their involvement in this story and find that they make me like Jane more.
Overall, Murder on the Poets Walk is an easy story to read and well worth the time. Jane is changing and growing, and this makes me happy. I wasn’t especially fond of the character previously. I got a chuckle out of the greeting card contest and some of the poems the poets came up with, many of which I can actually see as a card I would send a friend or loved one. I think readers will be thrilled with this new installment in the series, and I look forward to the continuing story of Jane and her family.
The Author
Ellery Adams has written over thirty novels and can’t imagine spending a day away from the keyboard. Ms. Adams, a Native New Yorker, has had a lifelong love affair with stories, food, rescue animals, and large bodies of water. When not working on her next novel, she bakes, gardens, and spoils her three cats while wasting far too much time on Pinterest. She lives with her husband and two children (aka the Trolls) in central North Carolina.
Other books readers will want to read from this author include Ink and Shadows from the “A Secret, Book, and Scone Society” series or another book from the “A Book Retreat Mystery” series, Murder in the Cookbook Nook.
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