How to Book a Murder by Cynthia Kuhn

Available December 7, 2021

Emma Starrs has returned home to Silvercrest, Colorado, after earning her PhD. Instead of accepting a tenure-track teaching position, she’s planning events for the Starlit bookstore owned by three generations of her family. Unfortunately her new career is off to a brutal start when the host of her first event turns up smothered to death on his own patio.

The book got off to a rough start for me. I felt like it was trying too hard to be intellectual and it came off a bit pompous. After a few chapters the edge became more smooth, flowing from the intellectual characters and letting the story feel much more natural. I did struggle throughout to keep track of the characters, there were several unrelated groups which were each quite large and there were several times a character would appear and I’d have to backtrack to remind myself who they were.

I love the bookstore setting and Emma and her sister Lucy and aunt Nora (just Nora, thank you very much) were a great team, not only in investigations but in life in general. I definitely look forward to following this series!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.