Author: Victoria Gilbert
Genre: Mystery
Hardcover; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781643859149
Crooked Lane Books
304 Pages
$14.99; $26.99 Amazon
June 7, 2022
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Booklover Charlotte is delighted to welcome an eclectic group of guests to Chapters Bed and Breakfast for a book club retreat focused on fairy tales and classic children's literature. But when one of the guests is poisoned at a Mad Hatter tea party, Charlotte realizes she's fallen down a rather unpleasant rabbit hole.
The victim -- an opinionated busybody whose jewelry store sold original designs, along with some possibly "hot" merchandise -- had plenty of enemies, spurring Charlotte and Ellen to offer their well-honed investigative skills to assist the local police. But as they delver deeper into each of the guest's stories, they realize all of them had a motive, and the means, to close the book on the unfortunate victim.
Enlisting the aid of a few local residents, as well as their new ally, agent Gavin Howard, Charlotte and Ellen vow to reveal the truth, even if the path to any sort of happy ending is strewn with deadly danger.
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Charlotte Reed is a young widow who inherited her late aunt's literary-themed B&B and has taken to it quite nicely. She loved the fact that her guests are people who are interested in reading, and are making use of the many books throughout. Her current guests are members of another book club, and they are going to discuss fairy tales and classic children's literature. But they are barely into their retreat when one of the guests is poisoned, and Charlotte is suspicious that this was no suicide. With the help of her neighbor Ellen, the two are determined to sift through the remaining guests to find a killer. But unfortunately, the killer is close and may just be watching them, too, putting the women's lives in mortal danger...
This is the third book in the series and I have read them all. I am highly delighted with Ms. Gilbert's writing ability; pulling you into the story easily and descriptions of everything surrounding the characters that people the book. We are given glimpses into Charlotte's and Ellen's past lives in each book, and it brings us to the present, where Charlotte may be changing, and enjoying a new budding romance again after being widowed so long. It is a tale told within the mystery, and quite interesting on its own.
As for the murder, the woman who was killed, Stacy, was an unsavory character to begin with. She managed to offend all of the guests -- and even Charlotte's employees - while she was alive, so it was no surprise that someone had slayed the woman early on. But when Charlotte starts looking into Stacy's past, she finds even more unpleasant things about the woman. All of it adds up to the fact that one of the remaining guests is a murderer -- and they're in Charlotte's home indefinitely, told to stay by the local police.
As the clues pile up, so do other things that are bothering Charlotte (which I will not go into here, since this book as of yet is unpublished and I do not want to spoil it for others) and Charlotte is also having doubts about certain things and may wish to make changes of her own. But it takes second place to finding a killer, and so she and Ellen keep looking.
When the ending comes, it is quite a climax. There is enough action in it to keep anyone interested, and it was definitely worth reading. While I am still on the fence about the changes to come, I love this series and will continue reading it. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a decent mystery, and this is worth the time. A cozy to curl up with on a cold night. Recommended.
I received an advance copy from the publisher and NetGalley but this in no way influenced my review.
More on Victoria Gilbert's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/g/victoria-gilbert/
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