Murder by the Seashore

Murder by the Seashore (A California Bookshop Mystery , Book 1) by Samara Yew
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Jilted by her boyfriend/business partner, mystery inheritance and now being called the Bookshop Killer. That's a lot for new book shop owner Scarlett Gardner to handle in her early days navigating her new status as single small business owner. Oh, and the murder took place steps away from her shop.

Gotta love a woman who wears purple framed glasses! I am surprised that she doesn’t have transition lenses instead of a pair of prescription sunglasses.  Apologies I digress.

This story has some twists you don’t often see in cozy mysteries. I enjoyed reading them. We also had some of the “normal” things like an ex who is a jerk and a gruff detective. At least in this case, it was understandable why he outwardly appeared to not like Scarlett.

I struggled with all of the “thoughts” to read instead of conversations. I kept wanting to “tell Scarlett” to get out of her own head. Lucia is firecracker and I would love to have her in my corner, she was a very good friend to Scarlett. 

While I did guess the perpetrator and most of the reason behind the crime, when everything came out, I was pleasantly surprised. At the end, there seemed like a few things were still hanging loose but not enough for me to downgrade my rating. I am curious if they are resolved in the next book. 

Also in the next book, would love to see more of Hiroki, the character seemed to make an appearance but not really get flushed out. There are a few hints at some history. It looks Jewels will be around which is cool. I hope that Evelyn returns and Detective Maxwell and Scarlett enter into a truce. There was a hint that big sister Olivia may make a trip from Australia. I think that would be cool for Scarlett to have her “spirit guide” local for a bit.

Loved the Blind Date with a Book idea, it is the first that I’ve heard of it.

Thank you to #NetGalley  for the opportunity to do an early read and share my thoughts on the story. 

Happy Reading!

Plot Summary:

Perfect for fans of Jenn McKinlay and Ellery Adams, Scarlett Gardner’s dream was to open a bookshop in Southern California, but it soon becomes a nightmare when she finds the dead body of a customer—and becomes the prime suspect.

Southern California is where dreams come true—or so Scarlett Gardner thought. When she moved there and opened the Palm Trees and Page Turners bookshop, she thought her boyfriend and business partner would be part of the story. When he leaves her for a better job, Scarlett finds herself struggling to keep her new business afloat. That’s not the only thing she has to worry about—she discovers something underneath the pier by her bookshop that she didn’t outline for her life’s story: the dead body of a book-buying customer.

After Scarlett gives a statement to the police, she thinks her life can go back to business as usual. But when a lawyer, representing someone named Lorelai Knight, tells Scarlett that she now stands to inherit a small fortune, she’s left with more questions than answers. Before she can make sense of any of it, the police bring her in for questioning; the body she found was Lorelai Knight. And the evidence they have against Scarlett doesn’t look good. Business is booming as Scarlett returns to Palm Trees and Page Turners, but for all the wrong reasons – curious tourists don’t want books, they want a glimpse of the Bookshop Killer.

Who could really be behind all of this? And why frame Scarlett? To clear her name, she’s going to have get creative—and hope she can remain one page ahead of the killer.