Booked for Murder by P. J. Nelson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
📚♥️📚♥️📚♥️📚♥️📚♥️📚♥️📚♥️📚
Booked for Murder is the 1st-book in the Old Juniper Bookstore Mysteries series. This is a new Cozy Mystery series set in a small Georgia town.
In this, we meet Madeline Brimley, who has just returned to her hometown of Enigma, Georgia, after the passing of her Aunt Rose, her dearest remaining relative.
Maddy has mixed feelings about going back. She always dreamed of leaving Enigma and heading to NYC, as an actress, to follow in her Aunt Rose’s footsteps, actually. Things in New York were tough though, and she actually ended up in the Theater circuit in Atlanta instead.
Even though Atlanta isn’t quite what she dreamed, it’s better than Enigma, and now she has to go back. Aunt Rose left Madeline her property, including her bookstore, the Old Juniper, which caters to the local college students.
Almost as soon as Madeline arrives back, though, things start going wrong. First, the long-standing and well-loved gazebo in the back yard is set ablaze, and then Madeline starts receiving disturbing calls from someone threatening her unless she leaves.
Madeline isn’t one to be easily intimidated however, so the calls and fire end up having the opposite effect, making her dig in even more.
She befriends a local student, Tandy, who seems to have also been quite close with Aunt Rose. Tandy inserts herself into helping with the bookstore, for which Maddy is grateful. That is until the next fire, that ultimately ends in murder.
Not fully trusting the local authorities, and also feeling slightly guilty over the violent death which took place in the bookstore, Maddy begins an investigation of her own.
Will she be able to find out who is after her, or will they end up getting to her first? It seems they’ve tried to kill already. The next time, they may actually be successful.
This was a fun start to new Cozy Mystery series. I did enjoy the bookshop setting and the small town Georgia feels. I listened to the audibook, and the narrator did a great job channeling some accents that felt true to the story.
At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to vibe with Maddy. She can be a little abrasive and off-putting at times. It almost felt at certain points that she was completely unreasonable and condescending to those around her, but I think it’s all just an intentional part of her character journey.
She did become more likable over the course of the book and I started to understand where she was coming from the more I learned about her.
There was also a nice mix of side characters, Gloria, the reverend of a nearby church being my favorite, as well as a potential love interest for Maddy.
I feel like Nelson did a solid job setting up the small town atmosphere, as well as providing plenty of room for Maddy, as well as this series, to grow moving forward. I would definitely be interested in reading more mysteries centered around the Old Juniper Bookstore.
Thank you to the publisher, Dreamscape Media, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I would def recommend the audio format if you are interested in picking this one up!