Old Juniper Bookstore Mysteries

In this atmospheric Southern cozy debut, Madeline Brimley returns to the bookstore she inherited, discovering that small towns hold deadly secrets. Madeline Brimley left small-town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. Her dramatic escapades are many, but success has eluded her, leaving her at loose ends. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, but she's left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. But when she arrives in her beat-up Fiat to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore-and restart her life-Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges. The gazebo in the backyard is set ablaze, and a late-night caller threatens to burn the whole store down if she doesn't leave immediately. But Madeline Brimley, not one to be intimidated, ignores the threats and soldiers on. Until there's another fire and a murder in the store itself. Now, with a cloud of suspicion falling over her, it's up to Madeline to untangle the skein of secrets and find the killer before she herself is the next victim.

Madeline Brimley, new owner of a bookstore in a small Georgia town, finds herself playing sleuth when a friend is charged with the murder of a much-disliked woman. Madeline Brimley recently inherited a bookstore in Enigma, Georgia, is embarking on her second career, after her first one (acting) founders upon the metaphorical rocks. Settling in, Madeline recruits her friend Gloria Coleman, the local Episcopal priest, to help her plant azaleas in the front yard of the old Victorian that houses the bookstore. Turning the soil, however, uncovers the body of one Beatrice Glassie, a troublesome woman who has been missing for the past six months. When her friend Gloria is arrested for the murder, Madeline is determined to prove her innocence and, as she quickly finds out, there aren't many people in town who hadn't wanted to kill Bea Glassie at one point or another. And the very expensive and rare first edition of a particular volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales-ordered by the victim and her sister is somehow tied to the grim death. With the help of her not-quite-boyfriend, a local lawman, and her deceased aunt's bestfriend, Madeline plans to set a trap to catch the real murderer-before she becomes the next victim.