Shelby Cox, bookseller and town newbie didn't have to go far to find a body this time, right outside her "door" and of course she is going to be curious since the victim was in her shop just a few days before looking for someone. Feeling as if she needs to get to the bottom of this mystery, after all, the victims distraught daughter is in town demanding answers and the list of suspects seems to be growing, Shelby is well on her way to irritating the local law. In addition to worrying Sheriff Stone and Aunt Edie, Shelby's boyfriend/Coast Guard investigator, Zack, who is working out of town on a secondment, begs her to be careful. You cannot help but be caught up in the sleuthing path that Shelby takes us on or agreeing with the need to ask questions. After all, this isn't her first time around murder or mystery, it is the first time it has been "dropped" almost right on her door/boat step. Shelby is completely relatable and you can't help but like her new BFF, Erica, owner of the shop Chocomania which sells the best truffles! I really wish that Erica would share a recipe or two! I was a little worried up until the end but am happy to see that it all worked out. Looking forward to the next Castle Bookshop Mystery. And I am quite serious about those truffle recipes!

A Deadly Chapter: A Castle Bookshop Mystery by Essie Lang
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Release Date: March 9, 2021

A Deadly Chapter is the third book in A Castle Bookshop Mystery series by Essie Lang. I had not read the previous books, but was easily able to read this as a standalone book.

This book was very enjoyable. The mystery was great, with lots of twists and turns. The characters were awesome, plus who doesn't want to live on a houseboat! There was a lot going on in the storyline and I enjoyed the different dimensions of each character and their interactions!

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and look forward to reading the other books in the series.

I'm so grateful to Essie Lang, Crooked Lane Books, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Shelby has to solve another Castle Bookshop mystery after she discovers a body floating by her houseboat. The Deadly Chapter is a great cozy with many suspects and a satisfying read.

Shelby Cox isn’t sure what woke her, but she’s glad something did because she’s going to be late opening Bayside Books. Stepping out onto the upper deck of her houseboat to check the weather, Shelby hears a thunk. Investigating the noise, she finds a body of floating in the water. Her houseboat now a crime scene, Shelby is forced to her aunt’s house for breakfast and a change of clothes since pajamas aren’t appropriate retail wear.
At the store, the police chief shows Shelby a picture of a man’s body. Shelby recognizes him. He has visited the bookstore twice, once in the fall and the day before his body is found. Shelby doesn’t know his name. What she does know is the unknown man was looking for a woman who had moved to the area seven years ago. Shelby feels she owes the man something since she had talked to him twice and found his body. Shelby inserts herself into the investigation. As Shelby draws closer to the truth, she puts herself in the killer’s path. Will she solve the mystery or become another body in the bay?
Recommended.

A Deadly Chapter is the third Castle Bookshop Mystery, but the first one that I've read. This didn't keep me from thoroughly enjoying the books and being able to jump right into the storyline. Shelby Cox runs a book store on the tourist spot of Blye Island, one of New York state's thousand islands. (I had to Google to see that this was a real place. I consider myself well traveled and well versed in geography but somehow I've never heard of these islands).

This book has all the charming elements to a cozy mystery. An enviable and picturesque location, an even more enviable living abode (Shelby lives on a houseboat), a cast of colorful characters, and crime that is not too gory or hard boiled. Right at the beginning of the book Shelby finds a dead man knocking against the side of her boat, and when the police fish him out of the water, she realizes she has met him before. He came into her bookshop twice, inquiring if she knew of a woman that had moved to the island seven years before. Shelby already has two solved murders under her belt, and she just can't leave this mystery alone.

I enjoyed meeting the characters that inhabit the Bayside Bookstore, and I was in the mood for a mystery where the characters weren't totally evil and depraved. The setting of the book was very enticing, and I am interested in going back and reading the first two mysteries in the series. Thank you to NetGalley, and the author and publisher of A Deadly Chapter for allowing me to preview this ARC.

I want to say thank you to netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for my gifted copy for review, unfortunately this one just did not work for me. I thought the premise sounded cute, a woman living on a houseboat in a small town and she works in a bookstore. Shelby wakes up one morning and there is a man dead hitting the side of her boat and an investigation ensues. I am learning about my reading tastes that I find I do not really enjoy when average people can solve mysteries when the local police can not. Another problem I had with this one was the writing style, for whatever reason I found it to be a bit choppy and didn't flow well. I think there are readers out there who will enjoy this one, it just didn't work for me.

I received this book from the publisher through Netgalley for review and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
This is a cozy mystery, third in series by Canadian award winning author. It has all the lovely cozy elements expected of the genre. A visitor to this small island town is murdered after asking after a woman who came to live there seven years previously. Our protagonist owns the local bookstore and has a nose for investigation which places her in deep trouble, and often. Quick cozy and won't disappoint. I enjoyed it and liked the characters.

This is the second book I've read in this series. I missed the first book, which put me a little behind on the second book, but the author has caught me up and I know who's who now.

I enjoyed this book on several levels. First of all, the characters are becoming more alive for me. I love Edie. She is full of heart and loves Shelby like a daughter. Shelby discovers her mother in this book. She has mixed feelings considering all that happened in her childhood. I also loved the story and the fact she lives on a houseboat is interesting to me. The Castle and the bookstore play roles in this book as well.

All in all, I thought this book was great! I hope to read the next in the series! Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read and review this book!

The title of the book attracted me on first sight, because who doesn't love mysteries surrounding a bookstore, right? 🙈💚

A Deadly Chapter started off slowly, but turned out to be an interesting read after the first few chapters passed by. I haven't read the first two books of the series, so I wasn't really familiar with Shelby's reputation as a sleuth. 😅 I loved her character though. The plot was very intriguing and I couldn't stop turning the pages on my kindle as fast as I could to know what happened next in the story. The ending was unexpected, and it blew my mind *WHOOOSH*

Will catch up with the series soon, as I'm highly impressed with Essie Lang's storytelling style! 💜

What a fascinating book. I was impressed by the storyline and the characters were all well written and complex. Where there are complex storylines combined with intriguing characters the reader experience is magnified tremendously. To have a book that is well written as well as entertaining is a delight. Reading is about escaping your world and entering another one. Here I forgot about my own life and was immersed in the world created by the author. I would recommend this book.

Another favorite by a great author. The plot of the story was very well written. The author really draws the reader in as you read. I felt like I was an unnamed character in the story. One of my favorite genres.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. It has been published in March 2021.

"A Deadly Chapter" by Essie Lang was a disappointment.
I was drawn to it by the beautiful cover and by the enticing blurb, but the actual book never managed to capture my attention or imagination.
There's too much conversation, too little action.
The action starts early on, alright: a body is found at the very beginning of the novel... but afterwards, not much else happens for a very long time.
I thought this was a story about an amateur sleuth, but the actual investigation covers about 10% of the novel and the remaining 90% focuses on the protagonist's everyday life. I wouldn't have minded if the author had made it interesting - there are plenty of detective books that I've loved where the primary focus is the detective's private life - but in this particular case... it's just too boring to bear!
The protagonist spends *several consecutive chapters* discussing her work roster in painstaking detail: why she doesn't work on Mondays, and should she start working on Mondays, and what other options can be found in order to keep her Mondays free... Who cares?!
At one point, she compares her life to the plot of one of the books she has for sale in her bookshop. She says: "It's about a woman who moves back home trying to find herself and finds romance with a bit of a mystery. Just like me." So, if you want to read a 320-pages book about a self-centred, self-pitying woman who's trying to find herself (and romance), go on and read "A Deadly Chapter". You'd better not be here for the mystery, though, because there's only *a bit* of that.
The only positive notes that I can think of are: the amazing cover; the deeply feminist soul of this story; and the fact that, despite this being the third book in a series, it's pretty accessible to a casual reader who hasn't read the previous two instalments.
Overall, I can't honestly recommend this book.

A Deadly Chapter is the third installment in the Castle Bookshop series. Shelby Cox moved back to Alexandria Bay New York to help her Aunt Eddie run her two bookshops. She later learned she was co-owner and elected to stay in town. In this installment, she wakes up and hears a sound and looks down to what she thinks is a body next to her houseboat. She goes out to check and sure enough it is and thus starts this engaging mystery. Shelby is not anxious to jump into this investigation although she is definitely curious until the victim’s daughter Hilary asks for her help. The victim had been in the bookshop on the Island the day before asking about a women who may have moved to the area 7 years prior. Shelby was unable to help him but is shocked when he turns up to be the victim. She has a few leads and some run ins with Chief Stone along the way and once again ends up in personal danger on her way to solving the crime. This story also takes Shelby on several personal and emotional journeys as Zack (her Coast Guard boyfriend on temp assignment in Buffalo) is offered a promotion in Boston and she has to determine if she is ready to move with him. Also Merrily, Shelby’s Mother who she thought was dead and learned was alive shows up unexpected. Will be interesting to see how her relationship with her Mother goes. I did enjoy this book.

I really enjoyed the previous books in this series so I jumped at the chance to review A Deadly Chapter and revisit Alexandria Bay again. I love the description of this place and the fact that Shelby lives on a houseboat gives the book a unique setting.

But ‘environment’ can only get you so far. You need some interesting characters to live in that environment. And this is something this series really has in spades.

The main character, Shelby is fantastic. After returning to Alexandra Bay for good, she has really settled into her new life, including running the two bookstores she co-owns with her Aunt Edie and enjoying her steady relationship with Coast Guard agent Zack Griffin. She is level-headed and reliable and I find her more relatable than many cozy mystery sleuths that are more reckless or unbelievable.

Another fairly unique character to this series is a mature, female police chief, Chief Tekla Stone. She’s no-nonsense and competent without being rude or obnoxious (a trait I find many female police officers have in cozy mysteries). She appreciates Shelby’s help, but does spend quite a bit of time warning her off the case. It’s so refreshing to read a cozy mystery where the detective involved isn’t either a love interest or a jealous rival!

Along with the wonderful returning cast of characters, there are also a few new faces on the scene, including the victim’s daughter, Hilary, who is a local artist and is determined to catch her father’s killer – with Shelby’s help, of course.

Along with the murder mystery, there is another mystery to wrap our heads around – Shelby’s mother. In the last book, we learn that Shelby moved to Boston with her dad when she was three after her mother had died. Or so she was told. Shelby recently learned the truth – her mom had run off and left Shelby and Shelby’s father. In A Deadly Chapter, Shelby learns even more about her wayward mother – maybe more than she wants to know – and it proves to be another thing that Shelby must deal with alongside solving the murder.

And if solving a murder AND learning the truth about her mother wasn’t enough, Shelby is forced to take a serious look at her relationship with Zack as he has some changes of his own to announce. Whew! Lots of drama going on in this small-town caper!

If it sounds like that’s a lot to pack into one book, it never felt like it when I was reading the book. It’s very well paced and moved along quite quickly, although I sometimes it did feel like there was more emotional things going on than mystery-solving things. However, a lot of those ’emotional things’ helped to push some great character development forward and I think it bodes well for future books in the series.

*** Thank you to Crooked Lane Books, for providing me with an advanced e-copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

A Deadly Chapter should have been a great cozy mystery:

* Set in a well-known vacation spot in Upstate NY - the 1000 Islands
* A boathouse serves as the protagonist’s home
* She owns (or is part owner of) two book stores
* There is a castle
* There is a cat
* And there is a murder

Having said that, I found the book a less than enthusiastic read. It had a very slow start, though it picked up its pace toward the end. The setting was not as descriptive as one might hope for a beautiful area of the country - the same might be said for the abundance of characters to whom the reader is introduced. And rather than keeping me alert, wanting more, I found myself falling asleep while reading - not a good sign.

This is the third book in the “Castle Bookshop Mysteries” series with a promise of more to come. I was not so put off that I do not want to read more, but this book was not the finest cozy mystery I have read. I give it 3-½ stars.
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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 are mine alone.

This series captivated me from the beginning and gets better with each novel! A booklover’s dream, we visit the beautiful Thousand Islands area of upstate NY, working in a bookstore in a castle on one of the islands. In this compelling third in series, there is a baffling mystery and a huge change of relationships for Shelby. The author’s descriptions of spring in Alexandria Bay brought it to life for this reader, and we learn more about the characters who have cobbled together a wonderful family.

Shelby returned to Alexandria Bay a year ago, where she had once lived when a very young child. For years, she had been told her mother had died, and only recently learned that her mother was still alive and had left Shelby and her father. She and Aunt Edie are is part owners of the two bookshops that Aunt Edie manages. She only planned help while Edie had surgery, then quickly grew to love her aunt and the area, and for the first time had real friends. She met Zach, an investigator with the Coast Guard, and they have grown close. She also helped solve two murders. She is not one of Sheriff Tekla Stone’s favorite residents, but they have forged a mutual respect.

Early one morning, Shelby saw a dead body between her houseboat and the dock. The man had a head injury, so either he fell and hit his head, or someone hit him and sent him into the water. Shelby knew the man slightly; Nathan had been in the bookstore at Blye Castle last fall, and again the day before. He was from Fulsome Falls and looking for a woman who may have moved there seven years earlier. He had been to the main bookstore, library, and various shops. Nobody recognized the woman’s name or photo. Shelby had no plans to look into his death. At least, not until learning that he was the father of a one of her acquaintances, Hilary, an artist who had a showing at the local gallery.

Zach has been in Buffalo on a special project. He has just been promoted and when finished in Buffalo, will have to move to Boston and would like Shelby to consider joining him. Shelby is happy to finally be with family and loves Edie and being mothered by her. She loves working at the bookstore at the castle and has close friends as she had never had when living in Boston before. Her choice is either a long-distance relationship, giving up Zach, or moving with him and being far from her beloved aunt and friends. Then her mother came to town wanting to make amends. Shelby is not ready to listen to her after being rejected by her for so many years, much less give her a second chance.

Helping Hilary talk with people about her father annoys the sheriff, but they do share a little information they find with her. The decision regarding Zach is huge, as is the one about her mother, both consuming her thoughts. Plot twists add suspects, especially as they learn about the consulting work Nathan did locally. The mystery unfolds at a perfect pace, and I enjoyed the castle bookstore, wondering what decisions Shelby would make, and who really killed Nathan. The twist at the end is a huge surprise! The ending is satisfactory, with no loose ends. I highly recommend this to those who enjoy unique settings, bookstores, and well-written cozy mysteries with a good balance of family and relationship challenges.

From a thankful heart: I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley, and this is my honest review.

First, it must be established that this is most decidedly NOT a cozy mystery. This is a less-than-averagely written fiction that just happens to have a dead body in it. I knew by chapter 5 who the killer was and then had to sit through the rest of the book and all of Shelby's life and shenanigans that had precious little to do with the mystery itself [HOW many life disasters can one person have in one book?? It was a bit ridiculous]. Shelby should have taken time off from work for all the mooning and disconnectedness [HOW does her job even keep going is beyond me and she does pass a lot of stuff off on Laura in this book, though some of it is understandable with her arm issue] and stuff she had to deal with. It made for a very busy, very disjointed, very L O N G book. And the end with the reveal [FINALLY] of the murderer [which doesn't come until 93%] is extremely anticlimactic and do not EVEN get me started on the whole ending with Shelby and Zach.

Sigh.

I was really hoping that book 2 was a fluke and that this one would be better, but if anything, it was more problematic. Along with all of the above, there are major inconsistencies throughout the book [the MC unpacked the food from the cartons and then two pages later, her Aunt passes her the carton to serve herself from; wine with a screw top being touted as "expensive" and high end wine {no. just. no}, the MC walking to the library and the police station and then driving away etc etc etc] that just kept the book off balance [when the story-line was not] and was rather distracting.

With all this, I have to say I am done with this series. It is a huge disappointment because for the most part I like Shelby and I adore her Aunt Edie and Matthew and the supporting characters in the town. I just cannot deal with how poorly the last two were written and how little of a mystery was in this one. Very, very, disappointing.

Thank you to NetGalley, Essie Lang, and Crooked Lane Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is the 3rd in series and my favorite one of the series. I have read the previous in series and enjoy returning to this series. Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the opportunity. The setting is beautiful island life and a bookstore in a castle . All Bibliophiles will love the bookstore in this series.

We return to scenic Alexandria Bay, New York and the island home of Shelby who co owns a bookstore on one of the scenic smaller islands. Shelby has a bit of a reputation for solving murders and now has found a dead body at her bookstore. As she delves back into sleuthing while running her store she finds suspects abound and red herrings plenty to keep her guessing as to the suspect. She has a talent for pushing forward to find the right suspect much to the chagrin of the local police. .

I loved this next in series. The author has a talent for writing great charcters and interesting sleuths. I look forward to the next in series.

Shelby certainly has a lot thrown at her in a short time. How would you deal with all the decisions that she has to make? But on the up side, how much fun would it be to own a bookstore inside a castle? I have a picture in my mind what it looks like with all the shops. How fun would that be to visit? There are some interesting characters in this story, which always makes for good reading. The story line was good and I can’t wait to see what happens the next time I get to visit. I received this book from NetGalley, but my opinion is my own.

Life is good for Shelby, part owner of Bayside Books as she helps run the main bookshop and the other one nestled in Blye castle on Blye Island. Sure she has been involved in solving a few murders, much to the dismay of the local police. Despite all of that, nothing prepared her for a corpse to find its way to her very doorstep. Yes, houseboats don't really have doorsteps but this corpse was making a good attempt. She had seen him a couple of times at the store when he asked about a woman who had moved there almost a decade before. The police want her to stay away from the case but the man's daughter asks Shelby to help catch the killer. With enough experience from her previous investigating, Shelby agrees. It isn't long be fore the list of possible suspects is rather long and Shelby finds herself in harms way. She has a knack for taking undue risks but she also manages to catch the killer. Added to Shelby's life are several personal events that will have a serious impact on her future.
As with most cozies, the setting is great, the characters are people I would like to spend some time with and the puzzle satisfying. While I prefer to read series in order, this can easily be read as a stand alone.
My thanks to the publisher Crooked Lane Books and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.