MURDER BY THE SEASHORE

Good fortune and misfortune become a tangled web for the owner of a seaside bookstore in Southern California.

Palm Trees and Page Turners is a source of great pride for Scarlett Gardner. It’s a lot of work for a 20-something to run a bookshop on her own, even with the help of cheerful, devoted Evelyn Maxwell, her sole employee. But the person Scarlett had hoped would share her toil and her accomplishments was her ex-boyfriend Connor, who lit out shortly after Palm and Page opened. Still, Scarlett isn’t sorry she decided to stay on in Oceanside after Connor’s defection, since she finds the salt air soothing and the pace of life congenial. Her new roommate, Lucia Armenta, is simpatico, and the women spend quality time lounging on the sand and enjoying pizza and movie nights. Their domestic bliss is interrupted when Scarlett comes across a dead woman under the local pier but suffers no serious damage until the corpse is identified as Lorelai Knight, who, it turns out, has left a great deal of money to Scarlett. Scarlett can’t figure out why a total stranger would have left her a small fortune, but the windfall has definite downsides. It brings Connor scuttling back, hoping his ex will share some of her newfound wealth. And it puts Scarlett high up the list of suspects compiled by Det. Steve Maxwell of the Oceanside police, who’s Evelyn’s husband. Scarlett’s response to the good, the bad, and the ugly will appeal to readers who just may be in search of a good beach read themselves.

A quirky take on life, love, and murder.