The Year of the Projects: Crime and Poetry + By Book or By Crook

I do love a good list.  It gives a nice sense of order and focus and I love making lists about the books I want to read.  Last year I focused just on series I was behind on.  The project went great and I caught up on a ton of series but I felt like I was neglecting other books on my shelf and books at my library.  This year I have a few lists going - Series, Library, Clear Off My Shelves, and a random TBR Bingo where I pull books off my Goodreads TBR.  Here are a few of my most recent reads.

Goodreads:  Crime and Poetry (Magical Bookshop Mystery #1) by Amanda Flower

Project: Series

Blurb:  Rushing home to sit by her ailing grandmother’s bedside, Violet Waverly is shocked to find Grandma Daisy the picture of perfect health. Violet doesn’t need to read between the lines: her grandma wants Violet back home and working in her magical store, Charming Books. It’s where the perfect book tends to fly off the shelf and pick you...
Violet has every intention to hightail it back to Chicago, but then a dead man is discovered clutching a volume of Emily Dickinson’s poems from Grandma Daisy’s shop. The victim is Benedict Raisin, who recently put Grandma Daisy in his will, making her a prime suspect. Now, with the help of a tuxedo cat named Emerson, Violet will have to find a killer to keep Grandma from getting booked for good...

My Thoughts:  I have had this book sitting on my shelf for ages and I'm so glad I finally got to it!  Right from the beginning I really enjoyed it.  Violet makes a good main character.  She's got a bit of a backstory which makes her desire to not stay in town make sense but also a close relationship with her grandmother and a love for the bookstore that makes her feel very torn.  Her reasons for getting pulled into the investigation make sense and while she doesn't always report things to the police as often as she should it fits with her personality and doesn't bother me as much as it usually would.  I love that the magic focuses on books and I really enjoyed the two animal sidekicks.  This is a fun entry to a series that I'm really looking forward to continue with.  My Rating: Really Liked It! (4 Stars)

Goodreads:  By Book or By Crook (Lighthouse Library Mystery #1) by Eva Gates

Project: Series

Blurb:  For ten years Lucy has enjoyed her job poring over rare tomes of literature for the Harvard Library, but she has not enjoyed the demands of her family’s social whorl or her sort-of-engagement to the staid son of her father’s law partner. But when her ten-year relationship implodes, Lucy realizes that the plot of her life is in need of a serious rewrite.
Calling on her aunt Ellen, Lucy hopes that a little fun in the Outer Banks sun—and some confections from her cousin Josie’s bakery—will help clear her head. But her retreat quickly turns into an unexpected opportunity when Aunt Ellen gets her involved in the lighthouse library tucked away on Bodie Island.

Lucy is thrilled to land a librarian job in her favorite place in the world. But when a priceless first edition Jane Austen novel is stolen and the chair of the library board is murdered, Lucy suddenly finds herself ensnared in a real-life mystery—and she’s not so sure there’s going to be a happy ending....

My Thoughts:  I've read a few of the later books in the series and enjoyed them but always felt like I was missing a bit about the setup of the series.  I really enjoyed this first book in the series.  The lighthouse library has to be the absolute best setting for a mystery series and I love that Lucy is not only a librarian but a true book lover.  The side characters are wonderful - especially Charles, the library cat.  The mystery is fast paced with lots of viable suspects and surprising conclusion.  This is another series I'm really excited to see develop.  My Rating: Really Liked It! (4 Stars)