review: A Murder For The Books by Victoria Gilbert

While browsing the NetGalley website, I saw a cozy looking cover with a bookshelf and a table with a stack of books (oh, and a gun). The title said something with “books”. I got curious and clicked on the image to read what the book was about. “A Murder for the Books*” doesn’t sound like my normal reading and although the book was in the category Mystery & Thrillers and was about a murderer, I requested the ebook.

My opinion

When I think about Mystery & Thrillers, I have other books in mind. Books I never read. Dark covers. “Gone Girl” or something like that. But the description (see at the end of the article) of “A Murder for the Books” sounds more like my usual romance/women’s fiction with a bit of suspension. The plot is also similar: a woman, working at a university library and who doesn’t look like a cover model, is cheated on by her boyfriend and moves to her aunt to look after her. A new life, new job at the local library and of course – this is where she meets a good looking man who, by coinsidence, moves at the house next door to her aunt’s. His new home has a bit of history and because of what happend in the past someone is killed. Amy and Richard investigate by using the library and archive for their research on the history and they find interesting things.

There was some cover-up in the past including water from the well in Richard’s garden and there are also some family secrets. It seemed more or less realistic to me.

What I find a bit… let’s say strange is the fact that Amy, who is only one or two years older than me, had a great-grandmother until she was 14 and her aunt is in her sixties and is described as an old woman. 65 is old?! What is my father now at 75? An old old man? I never knew my great-grandparents because they died when my parents where a child or at least young. I know that some children still have their great-grandparents, but until their youth?

All in all: it was a nice read (well, aside from the murderers and kidnapping). This book will be published on 12 december, so you have to wait a bit. There is a second book planned for next July.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the advanced reader copy (arc).
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