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Little Bookshop of Murder
- A Beach Reads Mystery
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Summer Merriweather's career as a Shakespeare professor hangs by a bookbinder's thread. Academic life at her Virginia university is a viper's pit, so Summer spends her summer in England, researching a scholarly paper that, with any luck, will finally get her published, impress the dean, and save her job. But her English idyll ends when her mother, Hildy, shuffles off her mortal coil from an apparent heart attack.
Returning to Brigid's Island, North Carolina, for the funeral, Summer is impatient to settle the estate, sell her mom's embarrassingly romance-themed bookstore, Beach Reads, and go home. But as she drops by Beach Reads, Summer finds threatening notes addressed to Hildy: Sell the bookstore or die.
Clearly, something is rotten on Brigid's Island. What method is behind the madness? Was Hildy murdered? The police insist there's not enough evidence to launch a murder investigation. Instead, Summer and her Aunt Agatha screw their courage to the sticking place and start sleuthing, with the help of Hildy's beloved book club.
But there are more suspects on Brigid's Island than are dreamt of in the Bard's darkest philosophizing. And if Summer can't find the villain, the town will be littered with a Shakespearean tragedy's worth of corpses - including her own.
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What listeners say about Little Bookshop of Murder
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- HappyMom
- 03-05-21
Delightful
Entertaining and delightful! The perfect beach read. I can’t wait to read the next book from this author.
1 person found this helpful
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- Robert
- 10-16-20
Meh.
For a book that wants to lift up cozy mysteries and shout their merits along side the "good books" the protagonist believes should be read, it seems to not know what makes up a good cozy. There's never been a more morose, self-pitying heroine. She spends the entire book whining about how her life has turned out while focusing over and over, and we get to hear it, on how things aren't working out for her.
Cozies should have fun, or at least interesting, supporting casts. Maybe this one does, but we never get to find out because of Summer's obsession on her self-doubts and insecurities. No wonder she's single. A good cozy should make you care about the protagonist and their friends: this one fails at that.
I made it through about 60% of the book and couldn't stop from falling asleep while listening to it. Partly because of the plodding story, but mostly because Christa Lewis' reading style for the book is so slow and serene, it is like she's reading off a list of casualties from the Titanic in a library. She's not a bad narrator, but the choice of pacing and tone in her voice just doesn't work for the material.
On the plus side, if it were a novel of rediscovery of one's roots, it wouldn't be too bad and, as I said, the narrator is not terrible. It's just the story and narrative direction are misguided for the genre.
I'll be returning this one and I'm not at all concerned with whodunnit, though I am pretty sure I know, and I am not good at picking out the murderer.
1 person found this helpful
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- Beatrice
- 10-13-20
5 Stars
I enjoyed Little Bookshop of Murder. The murderer seemed obvious from the beginning but the story was enjoyable and kept me interested until the end.
1 person found this helpful
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- Debbie Lacey
- 10-03-20
GREAT NEW SERIES
I REALLY ENJOYED THIS FIRST IN A NEW SERIES. THE CHARACTERS ARE A RANGE OF AGES. THEY ARE INTERESTING AND PROMISE MANY INTERESTING STORIES TO COME. CHRISTA IS A PLEASANT NARRATOR AND PERFECT FOR THIS SERIES. BUY IT. READ IT. WHEN CAN WE EXPECT BOOK 2?
1 person found this helpful
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- Karen Gustafson
- 04-29-22
Tedious
I really wanted to like this book by Maggie Blackburn A bookshop, a beach, an island, what’s not to love? The protagonist,Summer, is a mess. Her aunt and cousin are much more likable so there’s that. I wish I hadn’t wasted a credit on it.
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- Lexi
- 01-24-22
Couldn’t get through it
I usually can try to get through any book just to give a fair feedback. This was not one of those books. It was extremely slow. The main character is full of self loathing. I really wanted to at least like it.
**Spoiler Alert**
I couldn’t make it farther after they harped on the so called traumatic moment in her life was when she was caught on camera being scared of a spider. It was such a stretch for drama I couldn’t bite.
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- Margaret
- 11-27-21
First Time in Fifteen Years I've Returned a Book
This was absolutely the worst book I have ever listened to. I listened to the first few chapters and then listened to the last full chapter. I really didn't care who committed the murder or why. I wasn't invested in any of the characters and the narration was horrible. I do not know if I've ever heard her before. She may be a good narrator in another context, but her voice combined with this story/characters was just unappetizing. I was hoping I'd like it as none of my preorders are available until the end of December and I'm out of books that I haven't listened to. But, nope, this one is not for me.
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- Marilyn
- 11-16-21
Little Bookshop of Murder
I do recommend this well written book so very much. Will start off with the two comments I have as a criticism and they are very small. First the series title of this book is A BEACH READS MYSTERY. Well each time I would hear name of the bookshop, BEACH READS, the pronunciation was run into as one word and had no idea what the Narrator had said. Mind you she was a wonderful Narrator, just this comment that troubled me. I got used to it and that was that. The second comment about the story, there were several women in this story and when one would speak, it was She Said, or say the name and She Said. It came in very often the latter part of the book, almost if someone else had written it. Just got used to it as the Mystery was so good. Story takes you right up to the end. Please try this book, you will be very pleased you did. I am starting Book 2 tonight.
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- Jen K
- 10-21-21
Middle of the road mystery
I was asked to review the second book in the Beach Reads Mystery series, so I knew I needed to go back and read book one, Little Bookshop of Murder, first. I decided to pick up the audio version.
Little Bookshop of Murder suffers from the classic “first in a series” pitfall. The setting and characters have to be introduced and developed, and it overwhelms the book. The sheer number of characters in this book felt a little excessive. It took me well into the second half of the book to get them all straight. But the characters and town are interesting, and I was drawn in.
Summer is the main character. She’s back in her hometown after the death of her mother. Summer is positive that her mother’s death wasn’t natural and sets out on solving the mystery. Summer took a little while to warm up to. I think it’s the fact that she looks down on her mom’s bookstore, which focuses on “beach reads”—cozy mysteries and romances. Summer is a professor of Shakespeare, and for most of the book, she’s all snobby about books. While that view does adjust a bit, it’s off-putting and made it hard for me to get into her corner. As with most amateur sleuths, she bumbles around a bit until finally the pieces come together and the mystery is solved one step ahead of the police. And the mystery itself almost felt like just the vehicle for Summer to get to know the townsfolk… it was a bit thin.
Christa Lewis narrated the audiobook. I believe this is the first time I’ve heard her narration, and it was pretty good. She tried to do voices, or at least some variation, between the characters, which helped during the conversations. Her pacing was good, and she put enough emotion into the story to keep me hooked.
Little Bookshop of Murder was a decent start to a series. The characters and plot, as well as the narration, drew me in. But being a little overwhelmed with all the introductions and a pretty thin murder mystery left this book in the middle of the road for me. However, I will return to this series with Once Upon a Seaside Murder with hopes for a meatier story now that most of the town has been introduced.