Death on the Page (Castle Bookshop Mystery #2) by Essie Lang

Thousand Islands bookstore owner Shelby Cox sleuths the slaying of a true-crime writer who may have learned too much about a murder case that should have stayed shut.

There are a thousand stories in New York's scenic Thousand Islands, and Bayside Books co-owner Shelby Cox stocks them all. But lately, the Blye Island bookseller's life is more about investigation than inventory. True-crime writer Savannah Page caps off two successful signings at Bayside Books with a night in Blye Castle. She's there to research Joe Cabana, a colorful Prohibition-era mobster who owned the castle--until he was found dead in the island Grotto.

But crime becomes all too true for Savannah. Her body turns up the next morning, in a secret passage at the bottom of the stairs. The last thing Shelby Cox wants is to sleuth another murder, but she's intrigued about how a killer could have reached the island after hours. She's not at a lack for suspects either. It could have been anyone from Savannah's fiancé, Liam Kennelly, who argued with her the evening before, to island caretaker Matthew Kessler, recently cleared of his wife's murder. Can Shelby keep regular store hours, elude the police chief, and assemble the clues into a hard-bound case without getting permanently shelved?  (Summary via Goodreads)



When I started reading Death on the Page by Essie Lang I was instantly in love.  You cannot help but love Shelby Cox and her life.  The girl lives on a houseboat with a cat !!  She works in a bookstore in a castle on an island !!  

Shelby Cox and her aunt co-own two bookstores in the Thousand Island area, one on Blye Island in a castle and the other is in town.  Shelby works mostly at the bookstore on Blye Island unless something big is going on at the main store which in Death on the Page there is.  Both stores are having a true crime author do a book signing for her latest book and the signings are on a Friday night at the main store and Saturday afternoon at the other store.  True Crime author Savannah Page is also going to spend the night at the castle to do research for her latest cold case project after the signings.

Shelby gets pulled into the case when the author has gone missing on the morning after she spends the night at the castle.  When she is discovered at the bottom of some steep stairs in a hidden passageway, Shelby's curiosity gets the better of her.  And no matter what everyone says, she cannot stay out of it....especially when people of interest keep crossing her path.

While you are reading Death on the Page, Lang's style of writing opens the reader's imagination and you can see everything so clearly....so clearly that you will wish you were actually with Shelby on the houseboat and at the castle bookstore. You will, however, be glad you are safely on your couch in your own home when she gets too close to the killer......

I highly recommend this book.  There are so many things to fall in love with and I for one cannot wait until the next installment of the Castle Bookshop Mystery series.....



Review by Missi M.