The best part about reading this Paige Shelton series is that I am completely immersed in the book. While I’ve never been to Scotland (yet!) I feel as if I am there. This author is so talented at writing her stories that the reader becomes part of the story. I can see the setting so vividly in my mind as I read, and I’ve come to know and love these characters.

As an English major, I was thrilled with the premise for this book. I was happy to follow along on the literary tour, and then subsequently to try and figure out what happened to the missing tourist.

I’ve been a fan of Ms. Shelton for a long while, so I was thrilled to read this book. Looking forward to the next!

Thank you to Netgally, the publishers, and Paige Shelton

When I requested this book I was unaware that it was apart of a series, one that requires you to read the previous books for this one to make sense. I am unable to read all the previous books along with this one before the publish date. Therefore, I will rate this a fair 3/5 stars and will adjust the rating and review when I am able to read all the books in the series along with this one.

Delaney has to sub for Edwin on his once a year invitation-only 4 person tour of Edinburgh. There is an immediate problem when Edwin's credit card is rejected at the hotel. Delaney uses her card, but wonders what is wrong as Edwin is VERY rich.
The tour members seem to click and enjoy each other until one of them disappears from a restaurant. As it turns out, the woman wasn't the person who was supposed to be there; she had sent an email cancelling, but it went unread due to Edwin's unnamed emergency.
It turned out, Edwin's money had disappeared and his card compromised. He had gone to London to get his attorney(s)? to find an return his money.
Several murders are connected to the hotel, Edwin's missing money and the missing woman.
Working together, Delaney and her husband, Tom, along with the people at the Cracked Spine and her friends at the police manage to find the culprit.
I really enjoy the relationships Delaney has built since coming to Scotland from Kansas. They have truly become family.
The descriptions of the city make you feel you are really there.
As always, Paige Shelton gives us a wonderful read.

Scotland - I’m not sure why it looms so high on my list of places I want to visit, but it does. And this book reinforced my desire to go there. Fateful Words is the eighth book in the Scottish Bookshop Mystery series, and I felt the author provided enough backstory for me to jump right in and not feel lost. In addition to a good mystery, you get a virtual tour of literary Edinburgh!

Delaney works at The Cracked Spine, owned by Edwin, who is quite rich and has a lot of non-book collections which Delaney is cataloging, such as antique monocles. She’s from Kansas and has married a local man, Tom, who owns a pub nearby. Every year Edwin gives a custom literary tour of Edinburgh to four handpicked fans. This year, however, he is called away to London at just the wrong time and Delaney has to fill in for him, which makes her very nervous. Why Edwin has been called away provides part of the book’s mystery, but then there’s a suspicious death, a disappearing tour participant, and more.

I was happy that Delaney didn’t seem to put herself in danger, as so many amateur sleuths do - and then she did, near the end of the book. There’s also a big reveal near the end of the book - why do the bad guys always need to talk so much about their crimes?

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book, although I was rather late to it. I bounced between the ARC and the published audiobook, courtesy of my public library. The narrator, Susan Boyce, did a good job with the various voices and accents.

This is book 8 in the Scottish Bookshop Mystery. I jumped into it without having read any of the others and had no problems getting to know the characters and setting. Delany works at a used bookshop in Edinburgh, but she is originally from Kansas. Her boss, Edwin is scheduled to lead one of his famous book tours of the city but asks Delaney to fill in for him. But there is a death and a missing tour member. While Delany has to figure out what is happening, she also has to learn to trust her skills in leading a tour in an unfamiliar city. Great local characters.

I was originally given this story through Netgalley as a kindle read, but after reading the previous story as a audiobook I really wanted to continue the series in that format. So I waited for the book to be released and purchased the audio book.

Delaney's boss, Edwin is long known for holding book tours of Edinburgh. But when this latest tour is scheduled to start Edwin is urgently called out of town and Delaney is asked to step in and run the tour. Of course there is a suspicious death and things just get worse.

I have really enjoyed this book series and will continue to read it, probably through audio format.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this story. All thoughts an opinions are my own.

My first experience with the Scottish Bookshop Mystery series, I have mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed the characters, the way they're written. The author has a nice style & I read the book in 2 evenings. I've read about some of the tour sites before so I had a picture in my mind of the locations, that was a nice touch. A problem for me is the whole thing is so complicated. There are 4 plots going at one time that are eventually tied together but the relationship is tenuous at best. Knocking out a couple of incidents would have helped the flow. The ending just didn't wrap up nice and neat, I think there were still issues and could have been addressed in more detail.

#FatefulWords #PaigeShelton #AScottishBookshopMystery #netgalley #MinotaurBooks #bookshopmystery

I love this series and this was no exception. It's always fun to be back with some of my beloved characters. I really liked how Delaney had to step up and give the tour that usually only Edwin did and her thoughts on how she thought she wasn't going to be able to live up to Edwin's story telling, then of course the murder mystery is always fun. :)

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

This is an interesting mystery with wonderful characters. I would love to visit the Cracked Spine Bookshop! When Edwin, the owner of the Cracked Spine has to leave town mysteriously, Delaney has to conduct his famous yearly tour of Edinburgh. The reader also gets to go on a terrific tour of the city! There are many twists and turns in the mystery as the characters wend their ways through the old city.

I look forward to future books by Paige Shelton.

I've not been writing professional reviews for a while now, but I will say I found this murder mystery both engaging and entertaining. You will enjoy it.

Edwin, the owner of the Cracked Spine bookstore in Edinburgh, leaves town quickly for some secret business. This leaves his second in command, Delaney, in charge of the bookshop just as a group arrives for Edwin's highly regarded book-related holiday tours. Delaney is a bit out of her comfort zone as she hasn't run one of these tours before and now must scramble to figure out all the locations plus manage some unique guests. Just as she meets with the tour group, the inn manager falls to his death from the top of the inn where the group is lodging. To complicate matters further, one of the tour guests subsequently disappears and Delaney is also still trying to figure out where Edwin has gone.

I liked that the action picked up quickly in this book, which made it a quick read with lots of twists and turns in the plot. This is the first book in the Scottish book shop series by Paige Shelton that I have read. Despite this being the 8th book in the series, I didn't find it difficult to jump into the story as you don't need to have a lot of background on the characters to enjoy the mystery. I especially liked the location and how the historical and literary connections are woven into the story (i.e., the concept of the book-related tour).

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for the ARC copy of Fateful Words. It's a great weekend read.

The best thing about this book is the sort of travelogue that is detailed as Delaney (main character and bookstore archivist) leads a tour around Edinburgh, Scotland. The reader is treated to a bit of history and some descriptive language about various literary sites in the city. Delaney, as a relatively new Scottish transplant originally from Kansas, is forced to take over for her boss (a wealthy bookstore owner and native Scotsman) in providing a promised tour to four lucky foreigners. Edwin, her boss and the expected tour guide, has been called away for some hidden reason just as the tour is meant to commence.

The tour is interrupted by a variety of events, both suspicious and violent. As the group of travelers visits Edinburgh's historical and literary sites, identity theft, assaults, and murder take place in the background. As she has in the previous books in the series, Delaney manages to insert herself into the investigation of these acts and ends up in peril. By the end of the book, the ends have been sorted, the villain apprehended, and the major players mostly accounted for.

Prior to this book, I have enjoyed the series and looked forward to each new installment. FATEFUL WORDS is the eighth in the series, and it feels a bit phoned-in. The formula for the series has worked in the past because of the manner in which awareness of it has been obscured by Shelton's ability to transport the reader to the Scottish locale. However, this book never really moves beyond the surface level in characterization, plotting, or descriptive language. Consequently, I didn't feel the connection with the characters that I have in the past, and I was less than fully invested in the outcome of the book.

I am hopeful that when book nine in the series is available, Shelton will have returned to providing more depth in both plot and characterization. This one could have used more development.

"Fateful Words" centers around The Cracked Spine bookshop in Grassmarket, a section of Edinburgh, and the special guided tour that the owner, Edwin MacAlister, gives to four selected individuals each year. However, this year, Edwin is unexpected called away, and the task of leading the tour falls to Delaney, one of the employees. The tour gets off to a rocky start, and problems continue to mount, which may or may not be connected to the bookshop and/or one or more of the tour participants.

The author does a good job of keeping the reader guessing. The book starts off with a focus on Edwin's myriad collections and the efforts of his employee, Delaney, to catalog them. I was expecting the collections to play a prominent role in the mystery, but the role they play is not what I expected. In addition, the author keeps you guessing whether certain characters are involved in the criminal conspiracy at the heart of the story (identity theft), and what their roles may be. I also enjoyed the discussion of Edinburgh literary history.

When Delaney gets put in charge of Edwin’s literacy tour around Edinburgh after his last minute disappearance, she is determined to make the tour a success. But when things begin to happen to the tour members Delaney needs all the help she can get. What are the participants really up to? There seems to be a dangerous undercurrent to the tour and Delaney is going to find out what!

This was such a fun cozy mystery, making me want to travel to Scotland even more than I already do! The locations were written with lots of description and you felt like you were in Scotland with all the characters!

This series just gets better. We have a very special bookstore, friends that love and support each other, a budding romance and you have the beginning of such a wonderful book. I find that I really get to know the characters more with each book and they have become friends. The literary talk and the bookstore make me want to visit. This book was a welcome escape to a town I would like to live in.

3.5 stars rounded up. I’ve read one other book in the series and I found this one to be more interesting than the other. I particularly liked the tour of Edinburgh as it’s on my list of places to visit. The mystery itself was interesting and had plenty of characters to be the potential culprit.

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the arc.

Princess Fuzzypants here; I do enjoy this series that takes the reader around Edinburgh. I was surprised to read the author had been to the city only once. There is a real love that shines through especially in the eyes of Delaney, the American transplant who has found her love and her life in that beautiful city.

She gets to play tour guide to a small and select group of tourists whom her boss, Edwin, has hand selected. He normally is the guide but is called away on urgent business. Delaney doesn’t think she is up to the task but slips into this new role effortlessly. Her husband Tom is able to be her wingman which is just as well. Not only are there nefarious deeds that affect Edwin but there are some very strange goings on at the hotel where the group is staying, including the death of the manager and the assaults on two others associated with the Inn.

I like that everything Delaney learns she shares with her friend who is in charge of the investigations. It drives me crazy when a heroine balks at sharing but then is foolhardy to the extreme to try and validate the information. It does not mean that Delaney avoids getting caught in pickles. By the end, the villain is revealed and justice is served. It all amounts to a satisfying read. Five purrs and two paws up.

Paige Shelton brings us another Scottish bookshop mystery in Fateful Words. Edwin, owner of The Cracked Spine bookstore, is missing and his worker Delaney has to take charge of the yearly Edinburgh literary tour of visitors from around the world. Then the inn manager where they are staying falls or is pushed off the roof. Edwin's finances are questioned, and the identity of a tour participant is questioned. Who is pulling the strings and where is Edwin?

This one was just so so for me. It was my first book by this author and thus the only one I’ve read in the series. That possibly played into it. Thanks to NetGalley for the privilege to read and review this book.

Fateful Words Earns 5/5 Book Lovers … Clever & Engaging Gem!

A boss is MIA, and his annual gathering is now in Delaney’s hands. The four invitees, diverse in age, gender, and background, start out disappointed, but Delaney provides them an entertaining adventure with books, Edinburgh, and … murder!

I am a late bloomer to Paige Shelton’s Scottish Bookshop Mystery series starting with the eighth book, but no need to worry, it isn’t a prerequisite to read the other books, although they’re at the top of my “must read” list. Enough background was provided to grab my immediate attention, and with the Scottish setting, Delaney’s “bookish voices” illustrating her intuition, and enough dubious behaviors, clever twists, eavesdropping curiosities, and someone going missing, I couldn’t read fast enough. Delaney is clever, tests her boundaries, assimilated well with the highlands, and a must for me, responds and interacts realistically to the various obstacles and characters. Shelton did well to put readers, like me, in the middle of the beauty, culture, and history of Edinburgh, provide a diverse, multigenerational cast, and challenge my skill as an arm-chair detective. Lots of fun!