A Fatal Booking is the third book in Victoria Gilbert’s Booklover’s B&B Mysteries, a wonderful cozy mystery series set in North Carolina featuring a literary-themed B&B.
Title: A Fatal Booking
Author: Victoria Gilbert
Series: Booklover’s B&B Mysteries #3
First Published: June 7, 2022
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genres: Mystery
Acquired: from the publisher via Netgalley
*** Thank you to the publisher, Crooked Lane Books, for providing me with an e-copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review. ***
Booklover Charlotte is delighted to welcome an eclectic group of guests to Chapters Bed and Breakfast for a book club retreat focused on fairy tales and classic children’s literature. But when one of the guests is poisoned at a Mad Hatter tea party, Charlotte realizes she’s fallen down a rather unpleasant rabbit hole
The victim – an opinionated busybody whose jewelry store sold original designs, along with some possibly “hot” merchandise – had plenty of enemies, spurring Charlotte and Ellen to offer their well-honed investigative skills to assist the local police. But as they delve deeper into the each of the guest’s stories, they realize all of them had a motive, and the means, to close the book on the unfortunate victim.
Enlisting the aid of a few local residents, as well as their new ally, agent Gavin Howard, Charlotte and Ellen vow to reveal the truth, even if the path to any sort of happy ending is strewn with deadly danger.
An eclectic book club
A book-themed bed & breakfast inn is probably every book lover’s dream. And Chapters has book-themed rooms, literary events, great food, and a kind owner. The only thing that might be a turn-off is those pesky murders that seem to constantly happen.
In A Fatal Booking, Charlotte is hosting a book club at Chapters and its members are giving her a major headache. They’re a very eclectic bunch and don’t seem to have much in common, not even a love of books. Several of the members are feuding with each other, with the focus being Stacy Wilkin, a jewellery store owner who doesn’t seem to get along with anyone.
Part of the charm of this series are the descriptions of the literary events. In this book, the one that captured my imagination was the Mat Hatter tea party – it would be so fun to attend something like this in real life!
The regular characters make me come back for more
What I really enjoy about the Booklover’s B&B series is the characters (and the B&B)!
Charlotte is a great protagonist – she’s smart and competent, although still haunted over the death of her husband 5 years ago. Unlike many other amateur sleuths in other cozy mysteries who arrive in town to start a new life, Charlotte isn’t entirely convinced that her new life is the one she wants. There’s a bit of uncertainty over her future, which is an interesting twist and something that I’m sure will be resolved in future books.
My favourite two characters are Charlotte’s strongest mystery-solving allies – her neighbour (and former agent) Ellen and Charlotte’s boyfriend (and current agent) Gavin. They add a lot of professional crime-solving to the mix, which is a nice change from other mysteries.
While A Fatal Booking can be read as a standalone, it’s much more enjoyable to read the whole series in order to get the full picture on these great characters. The pacing in the book is fantastic and I couldn’t put the book down until I had read the solution to the murder. I had guessed incorrectly several times – there were lots of twists and turns and some very plausible suspects.
I highly recommend A Fatal Booking and am really looking forward to the next book in the series!
Quote from A Fatal Booking
