A review by atheina_vismark
Murder at The Bookstore by Sue Minix

3.0

Coffee-crazed Jennifer (Jen) Dawnson has two objectives in mind: write the first three chapters of her new book and send it to her editor before she decides to end her career early and catch the killer of Aletha, friend who mysteriously died in an explosion on a boat.

First of all lemme say I'm new meat to cozy mystery, and this whole story was a pleasant surprise. I liked a lot Jens' sass, even if it may have been overused in a lot of situations where maybe it would have been better for her to remain serious instead of trying to crack a joke. Another thing that really set me off is how Jen actually approached so many things in such a strange (stupid even?) way. Taking out that I was right on who murderer was from basically the start the mystery itself was nicely crafted. There were some minor plot holes but nothing too serious.

I really liked Brittany, she remained true to her character till the end. While I would have loved seen more screen time of Lacey and Eric, and especially Angus. Which we really didn't get to know at all taking out the beginning.

At the end of the day what really annoyed was Jen herself, her actions and thoughts being the complete opposite of what a mystery writer should be (then again maybe it's that what makes her si unique) and it never made me like her fully. The sass? Love. The rest? Meh.

But this is a nice book to read if you want too take a deep into a small town city murder mystery. Especially since Jen is a writer herself.

Another small thing for those who are going to read the book! Attention where you place your fingertips on the cover! The golden letters on the cover get easily erased like Ana Huang Twisted Series book covers. So better watch out for that.