Charming Cozy Mysteries Set in Bookstores

I love a historical setting alongside my mysteries, and this British novel has an absolutely
engrossing one. 

In 1955 Sussex, Flora’s life is upended when she opens her bookstore to discover the corpse of a young man. Unsettled and intrigued by the mystery, Flora seeks help from Jack, a bookshop customer and crime writer. Together they piece together clues that bring them to a hotel full of shady suspects.

If you’re charmed by these sleuths, you’ll be quickly adding the rest of this mystery series to your TBR.

A Sherlock Holmes-themed bookstore adds a fun twist to this mystery novel.

Gemma returns to Cape Cod when she inherits her great uncle’s Sherlock Holmes bookshop, along with a cat named Moriarty who becomes her nemesis (of course). A dead body puts a damper on her homecoming when she’s suspected of murder. Together with her friend Jayne, who runs a nearby tea room, Gemma must take a page from the great sleuth himself and use her wits to find the real killer as the bodies pile up. If you’re a Sherlock fan, it’s a must-read!

A bookstore and a ghost? Sign me up. This older mystery is set in a bookshop that young
widowed mom Penelope is managing with her aunt. Rumor has it the shop is haunted, and when
a thriller author is killed after revealing the store’s connection to a 1940 murder, Penelope learns
the truth. Turns out there is a ghost on the premise: hard-boiled detective Jack, the fedora-
wearing specter haunting Penelope’s dreams — and helping her solve the murder.

You’ll love being introduced to this unlikely crime-solving duo in this first book of the Haunted Bookshop Mystery series.

If you adore librarian main characters as much as I do, you’ll want to add this mystery to your
stack.

Marvey moves to a quirky Georgia town to work in the library, until a murder at a local
bookstore gives her another job: amateur sleuth. To clear her friend of the crime, Marvey must
use her research skills and help from other librarians — not to mention an appealing newspaper owner — to catch the killer.

You’ll devour this book until the last page, especially since it includes a mouthwatering Southern recipe for peach cobbler at the end!

Samantha is finally about to open her own mystery bookstore, a dream she shared with her late
husband. But a dead body in her backyard adds an unfortunate plot twist. Even worse? The cops
suspect Samantha of the crime since she’s writing her own historical murder mystery. Now
Samantha needs to clear her name with help from her grandmother and a fun cast of side
characters.

You’ll enjoy unraveling the puzzle alongside them — and seeing if Samantha and her story’s main character get their happy ending — in this series starter from an Agatha Award–nominated author.

If you’re like me, you’ll want to crawl into the pages of this Southern-set book and live there. 

In a bookshop in a small North Carolina town, Nora has the uncanny ability to know just which
book someone needs to heal. But when a customer is killed, she forms a group of women who try
to solve the case as they also bond over their secrets and delicious scones.

Between the mystery and the heartwarming friendship between the women, this cozy mystery brings all the feels. It’s best served with baked goods, of course.