I am voluntarily posting an honest review after reading an advance reader copy of this story.

Little Bookshop Of Murder, by Maggie Blackburn, is available at booksellers on 9-8-2020. It's book one in new Beach Reads Mystery series. I wish I had a more positive review to give but...I almost didn't finish and skipped around missing a bunch of chapters. If the characters had stopped having conversations, internal & external, about the same thing over and over the book would be a novella. The main female character was very hard to like. Her Aunt Agatha was more loveable and the African Grey parrot was a lovey dove.

#Netgalley #MaggieBlackburn #LittleBookshopOfMurder #BeachReadsMystery #CrookedLaneBooks

2.5 stars - mostly solid to solid, some issues. I wanted to like this one - and there were moments where I did - but there were other pieces that didn't work for me. Some might be dealt with in the editing process - my review is based on an early review copy.

There were many times as I was reading where I felt the passages were re-hashing conversations and covering ground in the "investigation" that had already been covered before. These parts felt like filler - spinning the wheels rather than gaining ground. There was one character who was eliminated as a suspect because she was out of town for the pertinent time period, but she kept weighing in on what happened that day as though she was there. The book club meeting was forever "tomorrow." I counted several spaces where the character was asked if she was ready for the meeting "tomorrow" or she was lamenting that she wasn't done with the book yet for the meeting "tomorrow," and then two more "the next mornings" would go by and then it was the book club "tomorrow" again. I didn't map it out on a calendar, but it was 4-5 days or more of "tomorrow." Those things could be dealt with in further editing before final publication and may be non-issues by the time the book releases.

My other struggles were more with the story itself. Summer is hard to like. I know that is on purpose - we are supposed to see her soften and change over the course of the book. Unfortunately she's a little too good at being off-putting. Her arrogance about "literature" and condescension about genre books like the romances and cozy mysteries in her mother's store felt out of place in an actual cozy mystery. Kudos to the author for creating a unique sort of cozy protagonist - I get what the goal is here - but personally I read cozies for likeable protagonists. The spider/arachnophobia part of the story didn't click for me, either. The killer was obvious right from the start, and the motive could have been stronger, especially when Summer becomes a target. The potential love interest disappeared in the later parts of the book. On a personal note, the new age/tarot/goddess stuff isn't a good fit for me as a reader, but I wouldn't say it's an "issue" with the story, only a matter of personal preference.

The store in the book sounds delightful, and I enjoyed Summer's family - and the parrot. There's potential here for a solid series with some fine tuning in character development and editing. (Some language)

This was a good story, but not good enough for me to want to read a series. I like cozy mysteries and this was similar to others in the genre. The characters just didn't grab me as much as I hoped.

Title: Little Bookshop of Murder
Author: Maggie Blackburn
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Summer Merriweather's career as a Shakespeare professor hangs by a bookbinder's thread. Academic life at her Virginia university is a viper's pit, so Summer spends her summer in England, researching a scholarly paper that, with any luck, will finally get her published, impress the Dean, and save her job. But her English idyll ends when her mother, Hildy, shuffles off her mortal coil from an apparent heart attack.

Returning to Brigid's Island, NC, for the funeral, Summer is impatient to settle the estate, sell her mom's embarrassingly romance-themed bookstore, Beach Reads, and go home. But as she drops by Beach Reads, Summer finds threatening notes addressed to Hildy: "Sell the bookstore or die."

Clearly, something is rotten on Brigid's Island. What method is behind the madness? Was Hildy murdered? The police insist there's not enough evidence to launch a murder investigation. Instead, Summer and her Aunt Agatha screw their courage to the sticking place and start sleuthing, with the help of Hildy's beloved book club. But there are more suspects on Brigid's Island than are dreamt of in the Bard's darkest philosophizing. And if Summer can't find the villain, the town will be littered with a Shakespearean tragedy's worth of corpses--including her own.

This sounded like the perfect book for me: I love the beach, books, and bookstores, and I enjoy reading Shakespeare. But it didn’t quite hit the mark. I figured out who the killer was early on, so none of the red herrings really worked.

There were entirely too many similar female characters—some even had similar names—so I didn’t have much luck keeping them sorted out. Summer was a bit of a wash for me, too: the whole premise of why her career was on the line was ridiculous and she kept doing things that just didn’t make sense: I’m pretty sure if my mother had just been murdered and someone had lit my house on fire while I was asleep inside it, I would not have been running all over town by myself—and I certainly wouldn’t have been walking anywhere alone.

Maggie Blackburn also writes under the name Mollie Cox Bryan. Little Bookshop of Murder is the first book in her new series.

(Galley courtesy of Crooked Lane Books in exchange for an honest review.)

I think this series has a lot of potential but the storytelling and the character development were not at their best in this story.
I found the characters underdeveloped and too many repetitions. I enjoyed the mystery and will try the next instalment.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

The book opens with Summer going to her mother's funeral. Summer has been away for several years but she feels something is off with her mother's death. The local police do not believe her and the autopsy report has not come back.
The book follows Summer, her remaining family and her mother's friends through the lens of a bookshop on the beach.
I enjoyed the story. It's a fun start to a new cozy mystery series.
There were some continuity issues. Summer had talked to some of the book club members but then later it was like she hadn't and still needed to talk to them. Another continuity issue was that the book club meeting kept being mentioned as being tomorrow and that mention occurred three or four days of time in the book. There were a couple of name mix ups as well.
One other issue was that Summer despised the books her mother had at Beach Reads. That was a bit off-putting when the audience for the book is from the category the main character despises. It's nice that her opinion evolves during the course of the book, but it doesn't market well to someone who loves cozy mysteries.
I suspected the murderer from early on. However, I didn't know the reason behind the murder until the reveal.
4 stars because of the minor issues I observed with continuity and the dislike the main character had for the very type of book this is.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review.

LITTLE BOOKSHOP OF MURDER by Maggie Blackburn
The First Beach Reads Mystery

Called back from a research trip in England, Summer Merriweather has returned to her childhood home of St. Brigid's Island. Reeling after the sudden death of her mother, Summer can't understand why a healthy 64 year old woman should suddenly drop dead. While Beach Reads was her mother's life, Summer has nothing but disdain for the bookstore that sells romance novels and cozy mysteries. Hoping to settle her mother's estate, Summer wants to leave and get her career back on track. But when she finds threatening letters to her mom, telling her to sell her store, Summer believes her mother's unexpected death was actually murder.

Summer Merriweather has a lot of issues, least of which is the belief that her mother was murdered. A Shakespearean scholar who considers light and fun reads below her, she's having difficulty with the life of an academian. Summer tends to run away; she ran to England after a humiliating video went viral, just as she left her fiance at the altar years prior, and just as she wants to leave St. Brigid's Island. Her emotions spiral from sorrow to anger, which isn't completely unexpected in a grieving person, but all of these traits combined make her difficult to truly like as a person. While many of the supporting cast have interesting attributes, there is no depth of character. The exception is Mr. Darcy who is written with love and understanding. Readers can feel his emotions as he comes to grips with his loss.

I love the setting of the first Beach Reads mystery. Description of the boardwalk had me sniffing the sea and craving a hot dog and lemonade. Beach Reads is a gem of a bookstore that makes me long to get lost in its aisles. I also enjoyed the mystery. A subtle crime, if murder can ever be subtle, with lots of suspects provided interest and lots of speculation.

With a great premise LITTLE BOOKSHOP OF MURDER opens a store of possibilities. Interesting characters have room to grow and develop and I'm curious to see how they and their world evolve.

This book is a cozy mystery that did not meet my usual expectations for a great cozy. It starts off with a great premise - Summer Merriweather’s mother has died after suffering a heart attack. The police see no evidence of foul play, but Summer and her group of new friends are not so sure. They have two tasks - prove it was murder and find the murderer.

It is a great premise, but the book falls short in its presentation. A number of things bothered me. The biggest was that the book was predictable - I had the murderer identified very early in the book. The author spent most of the 300+ pages convincing me I was correct. In addition, the book ended with too many open ends. The potential love interest was dropped halfway through the plot, Summer’s occupational future had way too many holes to provide a satisfying ending to the story. The future of the bookstore was left hanging as the story ended. Many of these holes could be answered in a sequel, but with no obvious sequel in the character's future the reader is left with open wounds.

The book might find a place on the public library or on the shelf for those who are fans of Maggie Blackburn. For now, I’ll keep it off my shelf.
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This review is based on a free electronic copy provided by the publisher for the purpose of creating this review. The opinions expressed are my own.

I really wanted to like this book. It seemed to have everything I like in my escape reading - book theme, cozy, setting, book shop, animal.....sad to say it fell flat for me. It didn't click and the major reason was? I didn't want to spend any more time with Summer, the main character. As soon as she started to dis fiction - romance and mystery - calling them fluff in a very negative tone, well that did it for me. Talk about arrogant! As far as she was concerned anything not written by Shakespeare wasn't worth her time. Bet her dearly departed mother would have had a few choice words for her. Summer was her opposite. My favorite character was the parrot.
Usually I can give a first in series book some slack as it sets up the characters and setting for future books. In this case I didn't care about what the future had in store for Summer. Disappointing.
My thanks to the publisher, Crooked Lane and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Loved this story and the characters in it. It was fun and interesting to watch Summer going through the different emotions she was feeling. I think she learned a lot about herself in the process. Thank goodness she had her Aunt Agatha, cousin Piper and niece Mia to help her. How much fun would it be to hang out with these folks? Of course, we can’t forget the Mermaid Pie Book Club members. How awesome that Hildy had these wonderful friends. This is book one in what I hope is a long series. I think we have much more to learn about the folks of St. Brigid and I can’t wait. I received this book from NetGalley, but my opinion is my own.

This was a bit of a disappointment, and for those looking for bookish cozies, this wouldn't be the place I'd recommend starting. It was off-putting how frequently the main character put down the cozy genre (while I understand she's a "high brow" Shakespeare professor who is slowly coming around, it just reads as somewhat insulting to the readers of the genre of THIS VERY BOOK), and the killer could not have been more painfully obvious had they announced boldly at the beginning what they'd done. A nice setting and community were the saving graces for this book.

Really looked forward to reading this book but sadly I feel that I wasted my time. The characters were off, the mystery was off and there were quite a few things just thrown in with no followup. Nothing seemed to gel for me. I love cozies, love the beach setting, love the bookstore setting but didn't love this book. I'm also a NC girl who was looking forward to a new series set on my coast! So many good things but this really needs work. So sorry!
I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher and voluntarily chose to review it.

Summer Merriweather came across as a jerk only reading classical literature and not the popular literature that her mother sells in her bookstore. When I read that she started doing this when she was a teenager, I saw it as an act of teenage rebellion she never outgrew. Made her more relatable. Not overly impressed with the book. To me it was rather easy to guess the identity of the killer, but I want to read the next book in the series before I decide if I want to continue with the series.

Little Bookshop of Murder is a new series featuring Beach Reads Bookshop in a small beach town. Summer Merriweather's mother has died and Summer has returned home for the funeral. Her mother, HIldy has always been super healthy and when Summer discovers threatening notes, she wonders if her mother was murdered. She, her aunt and cousin and her mother's best friends begin to do some sleuthing. The police are not helpful as they feel it was a simple heart attack.

Summer is not an easy character to like. She is a Shakespearean professor who detests romance novels. Beach Reads is all about romance novels and Summer is embarrassed by it all. I did like the other characters, family and old friends of Summer's mom who were part of a book club and helped in the store.

The murderer was fairly easy to guess as well as the reason. There may be a love interest for Summer but it seems to dry up. There are a few other things that are a bit incongruous or not explained. and the ending was a bit pat.

I did warm up to Summer by the end of the book as she comes to appreciate the town and her friends and family and even romance novels!


I requested and received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. However, the opinions expressed are my own.

Little Bookshop of Murder is a light and easy cozy mystery read that is more than fitting for beach reading. 




Summer Merriweather is having a time of it. A Shakespeare Professor researching a paper in England to try to save her career when the unexpected death of her very healthy mother brings her back to her childhood home.  Upon return she realizes things are not as they seem. Summer decides that if the local law won’t listen she will have to figure out this one herself. 




There are many things I enjoyed about Little Bookshop of Murder. First and foremost the store, Beach Reads!  The Idea of this store is a reader stream on the beach. From its name to its beach themed decor, It’s a place that I wouldn’t mind spending an afternoon or two enjoying reading by the sea. Second small towns whether I’m reading cozies or romance are always a favorite. This one has a vast array of quirky characters that make up a very fun and interesting town. Next the family dynamic within the story is priceless. I love the inner jokes and squabbling that goes back-and-forth between them. Summer it’s an interesting main character. She may have left a few ill feelings when she left home yet it’s still her home and has a love for it even if she didn’t realize how deep it goes. The mystery of the story itself was rather easy to figure out but the why was a bit off for me. However I enjoy this little town and these crazy characters enough that it will make me read the next book in the series.

Little Bookshop of Murder by Maggie Blackburn
Publication Date: September 8, 2020
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Description from NetGalley...
“A Shakespearean scholar inherits a beachside bookshop--and a murder mystery--in this delightful new cozy series for fans of Kate Carlisle and Ellery Adams.

Summer Merriweather's career as a Shakespeare professor hangs by a bookbinder's thread. Academic life at her Virginia university is a viper's pit, so Summer spends her summer in England, researching a scholarly paper that, with any luck, will finally get her published, impress the Dean, and save her job. But her English idyll ends when her mother, Hildy, shuffles off her mortal coil from an apparent heart attack.

Returning to Brigid's Island, NC, for the funeral, Summer is impatient to settle the estate, sell her mom's embarrassingly romance-themed bookstore, Beach Reads, and go home. But as she drops by Beach Reads, Summer finds threatening notes addressed to Hildy: "Sell the bookstore or die."

Clearly, something is rotten on Brigid's Island. What method is behind the madness? Was Hildy murdered? The police insist there's not enough evidence to launch a murder investigation. Instead, Summer and her Aunt Agatha screw their courage to the sticking place and start sleuthing, with the help of Hildy's beloved book club. But there are more suspects on Brigid's Island than are dreamt of in the Bard's darkest philosophizing. And if Summer can't find the villain, the town will be littered with a Shakespearean tragedy's worth of corpses--including her own.”
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Thank you to @NetGalley @crookedlanebooks @alcovepress for the digital ARC in return for my honest review.
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My thoughts...
This is the first book in Blackburn’s “A Beach Reads Mystery” series. Since I’m starting to have a liking for romcom, I thought I’d try to read more cozy mystery books. The book started interesting enough, but there wasn’t enough twists and turns for me, especially when I figured out the culprit. I didn’t appreciate that the main character seemed overly focused on being “too old” at 32. If that’s the case, then I’m ancient at 45! Overall, it was okay. If you like cozy mysteries, you might like it more than I did.

The groundwork has been laid for a very interesting second book in this new Beach Reads cozy series, and I am tempted to read it, which is somewhat of a miracle since I spent most of Little Bookshop of Murder greatly disliking the main character.

Summer is a hoity-toity Shakespearean scholar who's much too good for her mother's taste in "worthless" romance novels, no matter how popular or essential the bookstore has become to so many people. She's so scared of spiders that she sleeps with a special blanket and a mask that's supposed to cover all facial orifices so no eight-legged beasties can get in. This young woman has to be exhausted because she's spent her entire life rebelling against her mother, Hildy, and everything Hildy stands for. And may I also say that I thought Summer shows absolutely no class in wearing flip-flops to her mother's funeral? Maybe it's just me.

If we're talking characters in this book, my favorite is Mr. Darcy, Hildy's old African grey parrot. I wouldn't mind giving him a new home no matter how many feathers the old bird sheds. As for the mystery? Little Bookshop of Murder isn't a whodunit, the killer is rather obvious from the start. No, this is a whydunit, and I've often found that deducing why someone is killing people is much more interesting than the person's identity.

Since some of Summer's quirks are explained and resolved, and since the author has set up book two so well, I'll probably be visiting Brigid's Island again. But I'm giving her fair warning: give up that literary snob business. You're much better than that, woman.

Little Bookshop Of Murder is the first book in the Beach Reads Mystery series written by Maggie Blackburn.

Summer Merriweather is facing good and bad times in her life right now. The bad news is that she has to return to her family home on St. Brigid’s Island, NC, for her mother’s funeral. Her mother had been in good health, and death has been called a heart attack. At least she is on a sabbatical as a professor of Shakespeare at a Virginia university.

Summer’s mother was the owner of Beach Reads, a bookstore that carries mainly romance books, summer’s least favorite genre. Summer wants to get the store ready to sell, and when she starts going, her mother’s papers finds evidence that her mother has recently received threats on her life. When she approaches the police chief with this evidence, he claims it’s not enough to investigate. A few years ago, Summer had left his son at the altar, which is perhaps why he is unwilling to help, so she enlists some of her mother’s friend to learn just how her mother had died.

Summer seeks out her mother’s friends to help her to learn if her mother was, in fact, a victim of murder. After a fire at her mother’s home, the fire chief says the fire was a case of arson and agrees to help with her investigation.

I was hoping to like this book, the story was interesting and moved at a good pace, but I just couldn’t get to like any of the characters.

Summer Merriweather is a Shakespeare professor who’s on a forced sabbatical from her job after an embarrassing video of her showed up on the web. She runs off to England but comes home when she finds out her mother died of a heart attack. They had been slightly estranged from each other. Hildy was an earth goddess, hippy type, whereas Summer lives and breathes academia. Because Hildy was in excellent shape Summer is suspicious. She becomes even more suspicious when she finds out that Hildy had been getting death threats.

Summer also inherits her mother’s bookshop, Beach Reads, filled with romance novels and mysteries. Summer hates romances and mysteries. In short, she’s a book snob. Will Summer figure out who killed her mother? Will she get her job back? Will she actually read a romance novel?

The book itself is very well written. The characters are likeable and engaging. And I appreciate that Summer is an intelligent character. No running off to confront a murderer in an abandoned warehouse for her. The mystery is pretty easy to figure out, but it’s worth finishing the book to see Summer grow as a character and to get to know the residents of Brigid’s Island. I highly recommend this book, and I can’t wait to read the next installment in the series.

I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley in return for a fair and honest review.

Little Bookshop of Murder is the first book in the Beach Reads Mystery series by Maggie Blackburn and is currently scheduled for release on September 8 2020. Summer Merriweather's career as a Shakespeare professor hangs by a bookbinder's thread. Academic life at her Virginia university is a viper's pit, so Summer spends her summer in England, researching a scholarly paper that, with any luck, will finally get her published, impress the Dean, and save her job. But her English idyll ends when her mother, Hildy, dies from an apparent heart attack. Returning to Brigid's Island, NC, for the funeral, Summer is impatient to settle the estate, sell her mom's embarrassingly romance-themed bookstore, Beach Reads, and go home. But as she drops by Beach Reads, Summer finds threatening notes addressed to Hildy: "Sell the bookstore or die."

Little Bookshop of Murder is a mystery that had some really great moments, but also had some aspects that really fell flat for me. I loved that as a cozy mystery there was no attempt to add a romance arch for Summer. I really works in some stories, but not in others, and I do not think it would have added anything here. I thought parts of Summer's character were very realistic- the academic scholar that looks down on popular literature- even though most of the classics were the popular literature of its day. I have run into that attitude from teachers, librarians, and others just as often as those like myself that have the attitude of Hildy that as long as people are reading (and enjoying what they are reading) the particulars are not terribly important. Parts of the mystery were very nicely done, as were a good number of he secondary characters. However, there were moments that missed for me. There were hints about the killer from the very start, enough so that I knew something was up with them though the entire book and I never really swayed from that or was surprised by them. I kept waiting for that bookclub meeting to happen, because it was talked about so much, and for it to be the big reveal. I kept waiting for some big dramatic something, and there was, but by the time it happened I was just waiting to see if the killer ended up dead or if the police would take them in but I was no longer invested. I just wanted to see the wrap up.

Little Bookshop of Murder is a decent mystery, but I was not invested or overly impressed.