DESCRIPTION:
Julia Bird’s picturesque Cotswolds life is everything she’d dreamed of. Until, that is, she discovers a dead body in the library…
Julia Bird had imagined the quiet of rural life would be soothing after years in the city, but she finds she can’t just sit still.Determined to throw herself into village activities, she joins the library just in time to attend a talk by celebrated local author Vincent Andrews.
Charming, devilishly handsome and talented, Vincent teases the crowd with a reading from his forthcoming novel. Set in a village bearing strange similarities to Berrywick, with characters the audience start to recognise, Vincent hints of dark secrets to be revealed, to gasps of outrage from the room. The meeting ends in uproar, and, just hours later, Vincent’s dead body is discovered behind the bookshelves…
As one of the last people to see him alive, Julia feels morally bound to help the police investigate. With her trusty Labrador, Jake, at her side, she decides to do her own sleuthing and quickly discovers that Vincent’s personal life is messy, his finances are in disarray and his book sales are declining. But most of all, remembering her neighbours’ faces at the book reading, Julia wonders if one of them could have lost the plot enough to kill…
As Julia interrogates the suspects, she walks straight into another scene of murder and mayhem, and realises Vincent’s manuscript is now missing. There’s someone out there who’s deadly serious about keeping their secrets unpublished. Will Julia be able to stop them, before anyone else gets hurt?
Brilliantly twisty, this completely thrilling cozy mystery is perfect for fans of M.C. Beaton, Helena Marchmont and Clare Chase.
Julia Bird had imagined the quiet of rural life would be soothing after years in the city, but she finds she can’t just sit still.Determined to throw herself into village activities, she joins the library just in time to attend a talk by celebrated local author Vincent Andrews.
Charming, devilishly handsome and talented, Vincent teases the crowd with a reading from his forthcoming novel. Set in a village bearing strange similarities to Berrywick, with characters the audience start to recognise, Vincent hints of dark secrets to be revealed, to gasps of outrage from the room. The meeting ends in uproar, and, just hours later, Vincent’s dead body is discovered behind the bookshelves…
As one of the last people to see him alive, Julia feels morally bound to help the police investigate. With her trusty Labrador, Jake, at her side, she decides to do her own sleuthing and quickly discovers that Vincent’s personal life is messy, his finances are in disarray and his book sales are declining. But most of all, remembering her neighbours’ faces at the book reading, Julia wonders if one of them could have lost the plot enough to kill…
As Julia interrogates the suspects, she walks straight into another scene of murder and mayhem, and realises Vincent’s manuscript is now missing. There’s someone out there who’s deadly serious about keeping their secrets unpublished. Will Julia be able to stop them, before anyone else gets hurt?
Brilliantly twisty, this completely thrilling cozy mystery is perfect for fans of M.C. Beaton, Helena Marchmont and Clare Chase.
Amazon: https://geni.us/B09ZF2C3FBsocial
MY THOUGHTS:
Author: Katie Gayle
Series: Julia Bird Mysteries #2
Publisher: Bookouture
Publisher: Bookouture
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 255
Date of Publication: September 7, 2022
My Rating: 4 Stars
Julia Bird is a retired social worker who finds a source of excitement in her life, even if it is rather morbid. Previously she found a dead body and actually solved the mystery of that murder. Finding yet another body, that of author Vincent Andrews, really makes Julia scratch her head. She immediately wonders if she was meant to solve this apparent murder as well.
As before, Julia can't just look away. In fact, she delves deep into an investigation that belongs to the police, but she simply cannot help herself. So, she begins to question anyone who was present at the scene of the crime - the library where Andrews was having a book signing. She also begins to question anyone close to him, and this includes his wife.
As Julia soon discovers, more than one person had a gripe with Andrews, thus making things more than complicated for Julia as she again plays the role of amateur sleuth. Will she be able to hone in on the killer, and actually be the one to solve this crime?
Even pacing, and a delightful older sleuth go hand-in-hand in this enjoyable book by Katie Gayle. I loved the twists in this book and enjoyed playing the guessing game right along with Julia. This is the second book in the Julia Bird Mystery series, and I hadn't had the chance to read the first book. I was well pleased to see that this book, Murder in the Library did perfectly well as a standalone novel.
Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Katie Gayle is the writing partnership of best-selling South African writers, Kate Sidley and Gail Schimmel. Kate and Gail have, between them, written over ten books of various genres, but with Katie Gayle, they both make their debut in the cozy mystery genre. Both Gail and Kate live in Johannesburg, with husbands, children, dogs and cats. Unlike their sleuth Epiphany Bloom, neither of them have ever stolen a cat from the vet.
https://www.facebook.com/KatieGayleWriter
https://twitter.com/KatieGayleBooks
https://www.facebook.com/KatieGayleWriter
https://twitter.com/KatieGayleBooks
Sign up to be the first to hear about new releases from Katie Gayle here: https://www.bookouture. com/katie-gayle
No comments:
Post a Comment