If Elizabeth Penney’s haunted Ravensea Castle isn’t for you, maybe you’d prefer a cozy series set in a Cambridge Bookshop. Chapter and Curse takes an American librarian and her mother back to her mother’s hometown in a small village called Hazelhurst.
Molly Kimball’s father died six months earlier, her mother, Nina, is still mourning, and Molly’s about to lose her job as a librarian due to budget cuts. So, the letter from Nina’s Aunt Violet offers an enormous change. The family bookstore, Thomas Marlowe-Manuscripts & Folios was established in 1605. Now, there are financial problems. Violet hopes Nina is ready to come home to help run the bookstore. The minute Molly sees it, she has all kinds of ideas to promote the bookshop through social media. And, when she sees the Cambridge Literary Festival is coming up, she hopes they can participate. Violet calls on an old college friend, Persephone Brightwell, considered England’s best living poet.
While a crowd shows up for the event, Molly is interested in the stories about Violet’s college friends from fifty years earlier. One is a publisher, one married an MP. Myrtle is a hanger-on who has been part of the group all along. One committed suicide while in college. After the event, Molly wanders into the garden with the bike shop owner from next door. She’s the one who finds the body, stabbed with her Aunt Violet’s knitting needle.
With the police focused on Aunt Violet, Molly and a small group of new friends look for a killer. They’re surprised to find how many people have reasons to kill Myrtle, including all the woman’s old college friends. Could the secret that led to a death really go back fifty years?
This series was released before Penney’s Ravensea Castle books, but it has some of the same qualities. It’s descriptive of the area. But, the author’s books stand out because of the small community of caring family and friends. Molly and her mother are welcomed in the shopping area of Hazelhurst. It’s a solid supporting cast with their own problems that will undoubtedly come to play in future books. And, of course, these stories feature books. It’s a comfortable kick-off to a cozy series.
Elizabeth Penney’s website is https://www.elizabethpenneyauthor.com/
Chapter and Curse by Elizabeth Penney. St. Martin’s, 2021. 315p.
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