To The Tome Of Murder
Bookstore owner Addie is determined to turn a seemingly ordinary November in coastal Greyborne Harbor into one for the books. The windows of her shop display carefully curated works by American writers, including a rare selection of traditional holiday recipes from the influential 19th-century publication Godey’s Ladies Magazine. And then there’s the town’s Civil War-era-themed cooking and baking competition, with a hefty cash prize and free publicity going to the winning dish…
But when she finds her cousin’s boyfriend murdered, a stunned Addie reluctantly realizes she may be the only person who can blow the cover off a grisly crime. With so many unanswered questions surrounding the victim’s death, Addie must figure out the strange connection between a mysterious vintage briefcase, the disappearance of a first edition copy of Sarah Josepha Hale’s famous nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and a dangerously well-read culprit.
The Details
Series: A Beyond The Page Bookstore Mystery – Book #7
Author: Lauren Elliott
Genre/Category: Cozy – Bookstore/Holiday
Publisher: Kensington Cozies
ISBN: 1496735129
Page Count: 320
Rating: 
The Review
This isn’t the first time with this series that readers have to dig deep to figure out the why of a crime; even when you think you know the motive, you will second guess yourself several times, and by the time you figure out who did it, you will realize how easy it was all along. To The Tome Of Murder is the seventh book in this series and maybe the best one yet. But then again, you can’t go wrong with a beautiful bookstore, a civil war-themed cooking competition, and good friends.
Addie is scrambling to make the holiday perfect for everyone, family, friends, and bookstore customers alike, and trying to enjoy the civil war baking competition. But she is once again thrown into a murder investigation and ends up over her head. But even though her cousin is a pain in the behind, she is family, and Addie doesn’t want to believe that her cousin is a killer, no matter what the police say. Why would anyone suspects her cousin would kill her boyfriend over an argument about an old briefcase? The clues don’t add up, and suspects come out of the woodwork at every turn.
To The Tome Of Murder is a delightful mystery with all the ingredients needed to keep you guessing and coming back for more. The characters are lively, entertaining, and from time to time, complicated, but all of them add enough action and chaos to thrill readers. Suspects are wonderfully deceitful; there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. The setting of a bookstore is a common location but add in the retail side of selling vintage memorabilia, and old rare books, then throw in a civil war-themed baking competition, and you have readers hooked. Once the killer is revealed, it doesn’t come as a surprise, but this killer isn’t what readers are expecting. I enjoyed this installment in the series and know others will too.
The Author
Lauren Elliott grew up devouring the entire Nancy Drew series and then graduated to Victoria Holt, Agatha Christie, Barbara Erskine, Lynn Kurland, and Michael Crichton, to name a few of her favorite authors. When it came time for post-secondary education, journalism seemed like the logical choice as she had written for as long as she could remember. Soon after graduation, while working for a small publication, she discovered that reporting wasn’t what fueled her writing passions. As someone with an additional strong background in professional theatre who had the love of storytelling and captivating and holding an audience, her fiction-writing career began to take center stage.
Lauren’s imagination is boundless. All of her books, whether they explore different aspects of the paranormal with a dab of romance, fantasy, or is a suspense-filled cozy murder mystery. Her writing never fails to take her readers on a gripping, page-turning adventure.
Other books in the “A Beyond The Page Bookstore Mystery” series that readers will enjoy are Murder in the First Edition and A Page Marked For Murder.
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