Ink and Shadows: A Witty and Page-Turning Southern Cozy Mystery (Secret, Book and Scone Society, #4)

by Ellery Adams

Ellery Adams, the author of multiple New York Times bestselling mystery series and a perennial B&N bestseller, offers the fourth in her beguiling cozy mystery series featuring a librarian-turned-bookseller with a penchant for bibliotherapy and a sideline in solving crime. While people visit Miracle Springs for healing treatments, it’s Nora who helps them find peace by prescribing the perfect book along with a fresh-baked scone. After all, sometimes the key to happiness, friendship—or solving a
murder—can simply be found within the pages of the right book…
 

"Entertaining...packed with mystery, romance, and sisterhood." --Kirkus Reviews


Controversy erupts in Miracle Springs, North Carolina, when the owner of the local bookstore tries to play peacekeeper—but winds up playing detective instead…
 
Known for her window displays, Nora Pennington decides to showcase fictional heroines like Roald Dahl’s Matilda and Madeline Miller’s Circe for Halloween. But a family-values group disapproves of the magical themes and wastes no time launching a modern-day witch hunt. Suddenly, former friends and customers are targeting not only Nora and Miracle Books, but a new shopkeeper, Celeste, who’s been selling CBD oil products.
 
Nora and her friends in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society are doing their best to put an end to the strife—but then someone puts an end to a life. Declared an accident, the ruling can’t explain the old book page covered with strange symbols and disturbing drawings left under Nora’s doormat. It’s up to Nora and the Secret, Book, and Scone Society to sort out the clues before more bodies turn up and the secrets from Celeste’s past come back to haunt them all…

• ISBN10: 1496726413
• ISBN13: 9781496726414
• Publish Date: 26 January 2021
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Kensington Publishing
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9781496726414

Reviews

[Mystereity Reviews]

This series has the power to stick with me for a long time after I finish the latest in the series and this book is definitely no exception. Equal parts heart wrenching, terrifying, heartwarming, and compelling, Ink and Shadows is the perfect read for Women's History month. But you know what really wows me about this series? How gosh darn realistic and authentic is feels, none of the usual tropes or lazy writing. Just amazing characters, very well developed plots and the pure emotion that I feel reading through this makes each book so anticipated.

There was a lot going on in this one, which kept the pace moving quickly without sacrificing details. Celeste and her daughter are new in town and have just opened a gift shop, Soothe, near Nora's bookstore, Miracle Books. But life is anything but soothing for the newcomers, who become the target of an overzealous church group, who brands Soothe, Miracle Books and other businesses as being "unchristian". If that's not enough, Bren is found dead near Nora's house and not long after, Celeste herself becomes a murder victim. With two murders to investigate, lots of secrets and lies muddying the case, an unexpected friend of Nora's past challenging her status quo and the agony of the impossibility of being in two places at once, this made for a taut thriller that kept me turning pages.