Murder on the Books is the first book in a cozy shopfront mystery series by T.C. Lotempio. Released 1st July 2025 by Severn House, it's 233 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out in 1st quarter 2026 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.
This is a warm and quirky smalltown bookstore cozy with a female amateur sleuth, who's taking a hiatus from her successful career as a mystery writer to try to get over crippling writer's block. Set in rural Pennsylvania, the author does a good job with both setting and descriptive prose. As with nearly all smalltown cozies, it's full of eccentric characters and light-hearted dialogue.
The setup and murder are over-the-top, but not unusually so for a cozy mystery. As for the genre, the violence occurs mostly off-page, and the language is clean throughout. She acquires a cat called Poe along the way who also proves integral to the story. Happily, it's full of bookish mystery genre Easter eggs and name-drops, both classic and more modern for readers to chase down at their leisure.
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 7 hours, 49 minutes and is read by Christa Lewis.
She has a warm and smooth alto voice and although her
voice in some characters was a bit rough (abrasive?) it doesn't
overpower the read. She does a fair job of delineating the different
characters; they're easy to keep distinct from one
another. Sound and production quality were high throughout the read.
Four stars. It would make a good bus/commute read or a buddy read.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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