Stephy Reads The Bookshop Murder by Merryn Allingham

Hello There!

 Today I will be rambling about a cozy mystery book. Which isn't a genre I think I've read before. I dunno. I'm not great with genres.

Trigger Warnings:
Murder (it is in the title...)
Physical abuse (mentioned)
Sexism

This book takes place in the village of Abbeymead in Sussex in 1955. And in Abbeymead we have Flora Steele, owner of All's Well bookshop. We also have Jack Carrington, writer and recluse (hashtag life goals...) One day, Jack stops into the bookshop to pick up an order (something he usually has a boy for... Seriously, he is such a recluse that he just has some local kid run errands for him so he can hide in his house). And he and Flora find a dead body. The dead guy is Kevin Anderson, an Australian who was staying at the Priory (which... is a hotel? Sounds right.) It was determined that the healthy 21-year-old died of a heart attack. Which no one but Flora thought was suspicious. Though maybe she was biased since it was obvious that he had broken into her bookshop and then rudely died on the floor. 
So, Flora decides she is going to solve this mystery, and drags Jack along for the ride. 

I really enjoyed this book. The mystery was fun. I liked the characters. Jack and Flora had good chemistry together. Flora was a fun character, determined to solve the mystery. Jack is also fun. They have good banter, which I love. Everything needs good banter between characters. This is the first book in a series and I need to get the other books. I need to read more of Flora and Jack's adventures. There were hints of a possible future romance and I need that to happen.

That's really all I got, I think. Sorry this one is so short, but I didn't want to ramble too much and end up spoiling things. Because I do recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a fun mystery. Do not go into this expecting a romance subplot. There is a vague one happening but it doesn't follow through. I would say this is a bit of a Ray of Sunshine/Grumpy Grump trope, which I fucking adore. Though, Flora and Jack don't quite fit into those character tropes. Flora is a Ray of Sunshine on the outside, but inside she's a worrier. She wants to solve the mystery mostly because thanks to a corpse in her bookshop, people stop coming in to buy things. And Jack is a bit of a Grumpy Grump but mostly he's grumpy because of his Sad Backstory. 

Okay. That's all.


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I'll see y'all on Friday for my post on what I wanna do in September. And then Saturday for my weekly post.