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.
