What a delightful read! A story within a story! The main character Molly Kimball is a person with an inquisitive mind and a keen eye! I found the book flowed at a great pace. Loved the characters. A well written whodunit. Kudos! Thanks #netgalley and #stmartinspress for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

4.25 stars! A dark fairy-tale of a cozy mystery. And an absolute pleasure to read.

This is the second book in The Cambridge Bookshop Series by Elizabeth Penney and I was so excited to read it, especially after enjoying Book 1 - Chapter and Curse. They both have their charm and Book 2 was an absolute delight to read. I loved learning about the mysteries that cat lover and bookshop part-owner Molly Kimball gets pulled into along the way.

This time, Molly is meeting with Iona York, co-author of The Strawberry Girls to discuss her latest book, The Strawberry Girls. While visiting, a family acquittance of Iona's, Robin, has tumbled off her roof to his demise. Additionally, Iona's daughter suddenly goes missing and is nowhere to be found. Was Robin's death an accident? Or could there be a link between the two events, and perhaps to a crime committed in the past that still leaves questions to this day? Molly, yet again, is left to uncover the truth.

This book will have you hooked and wanting to know more after the very first chapter. In fact, every chapter leaves on a bit of a cliff-hanger, encouraging you to keep reading which I absolutely love. Molly is a character that truly seeks to support her friends and family and is fiercely loyal to them, and I think that acts a powerful driving factor as to why she is so invested in helping to investigate these cases, despite not being a formal investigator herself.

I loved the mysteries in this book, which had a scavenger hunt feel to them at times, but I truly loved one element which is the incorporation of a story-within-a-story. The Strawberry Girls was co-written by Iona's former, Nate, who also had a similar suspicious death to that of Robin. Passages of the book are incorporated into the novel, and I absolutely loved that! It really helped set the stage and evoked mystery and intrigue in the story, while also making you feel as if the real-life characters of the book were in their own dark fairy tale.

Cats Puck and Clarence are always a joy to read, and we hope to see much more of them in future instalments!

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for an advanced eGalley of this book. All opinions are my own.

i don't normally like English cozies, but this was fun and interesting. Loved the story within a story., but love that it didn't take over the main story.

Thanks to St.Martin's Publishing and Net Galley for the opportunity to read the second in Cambridge Bookshop series.
Having made the move from Vermont to Cambridge, England, Molly and her mother are helping Aunt Violet run the family bookshop. Molly has also met the dashing owner of the local bicycle shop who also happens to be the son and heir of Lord Graham. She's also met her English family from whom her mother had been estranged.
Molly has brought new ideas to the bookshop and author readings and signings are popular. When a new edition of Strawberry Girls, written and illustrated by a local author, Iona York is published Molly invites her to do a reading. When Molly and Aunt Violet visit Iona to iron out details of the event they discover a dead body that had apparently fallen from a partially thatched roof. Molly's Uncle Chris, the thatcher immediately comes under suspicion. Molly immediately jumps into her investigative mode and uncovers not only a murder but a disappearance, secrets about a long ago death and a major ring of archaeological artifact thieves. This is a fun series with an interesting cast of characters including a former MI5 spy. Looking forward to the next in the series.

A truly great story that actually had a story in a story. There was definitely intrigue abound and kept you guessing until the very end. The interaction between the characters was great and of course the cats. The way everything was described made you feel like you were actually there and involved in solving the mystery as well.

I received an ARC of, A Treacherous Tale, by Elizabeth Penney. This book is no fairy tale. Strange things are happening around Molly, just when she thought she was getting her life back together. Can Molly solve a murder and find a missing girl?

A Treacherous Tale by Elizabeth Penney features a book within a book to help solve a mystery! This delightful cozy is the second book in the Edgar Award Nominated Cambridge Bookshop series.
We return to Cambridge, England, and amateur sleuth Molly Kimball. Molly and her mother moved from Vermont to help run Thomas Marlowe Manuscripts and Folios. An old bookstore that their family has run for generations. Molly and her mother are visiting a beloved local children's author when they find the body of a man who has fallen off the roof. Also, one of the author's daughters is missing, and there might be a connection to her husband's death 20 years earlier, and to the classic children's story, she has written.
I love the setting of this series, in one of Cambridge's oldest and most charming bookshops. And the way the author describes the location and lifestyle really takes you there. Having enjoyed the first book in this series, it was great fun to return. A lively supporting cast surrounds Molly the MC, including her family, her handsome boyfriend, and the distinguished former MI6 agent, Sir Jon. This is a well-written and well-plotted cozy with an interesting archaeology and antiquities plotline. Plenty of red herrings and the use of the book within the book to drop clues made it fun to try to figure out whodunnit.
I look forward to reading more of this series and seeing what the author does with it! Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's press for the opportunity to review this ARC. I enjoyed it!

Molly Kimball works in a family owned bookshop, the Thomas Marlowe. With her Aunt Violet and her mum. They are going to have the author Iona York do a reading of her book, The Strawberry Girls. They go to meet up with her at the cottage. During a tour of the gardens they happen upon a dead body.

A mystery unfolds between the murder, a found Anglo-Saxon crown and the book.

I really enjoyed this book. The setting and the characters. Reading the excerpts of the Strawberry Girls Book. This is the second book in the series and my first. I was able to read it as a standalone but I'll definitely go back and read the first. I can't wait to see what happens next for Molly.

family-dynamics, family, friendship, England, bookseller, amateur-sleuth, murder, murder-investigation, small-business, relationships, relationship-issues, class-consciousness, archeological-dig, famous-author, missing-persons, law-enforcement, falsely accused*****

Excerpts from a children's story is woven through the story of contemporary murder in Cambridge, England. While visiting a famous author who will be having a book signing at their bookstore, Molly and her aunt literally stumble upon the body of a man who fell/was pushed off a roof being thatched by her uncle. And then thing REALLY get complicated. It's a grand cozy with a wide variety of characters, sneaky plot twists, and lots of herrings. LOVED it!
I requested and received a free e-book copy from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

A Treacherous Tale is delightful! The reader gets both a mystery and a fairytale about the Strawberry Girls. As the story unfolds there are connections between the current mystery and the story. It is ingenuous. I love following Molly along the path of her new life in Cambridge. Molly is a refreshing main character. She is inquisitive and has a positive outlook. She might worry too much but that’s a character flaw I can live with.
The tone of the book left me feeling good. Good triumphed over evil/misguided/greedy.
I happily recommend you pick up A Treacherous Tale.
Thanks to the author for the opportunity to access an early copy of the book.

A Treacherous Tale is the second book in this bookshop series of cozy novels. There are a great many bookshop/library/bookseller cozy mystery titles, but most do not reach the level of interest and complexity that author Elizabeth Penney achieves in this Cambridge Bookshop Series. As was the case with Penney's first novel in this series, Chapter and Curse, librarian Molly Kimball is a fine detective. Like many librarians, she has a quick, analytical mind, and she is not shy about using it.

Not all books succeed at creating a book within a book. A Treacherous Tale does so. The children's fairytale that lies at the center of this cozy mystery is broken into smaller segments, throughout the book. Molly is obviously far more patient than I am, considering my own inability to delay reading a book to savor my enjoyment over a longer period of time. I certainly understand the purpose as a plot device, but like other readers who may be irritated at this delay, I kept wondering if Penney would forget to tell the end of the fairytale. within this novel. However, this is such a minor complaint that I cannot possibly deduct from my review over this one quibble.

A Treacherous Tale stands apart from other bookshop cozy mysteries because Penney is capable to creating interesting, complex, dynamic characters. With luck, a really good book is capable to transporting readers into the story. But to make this transformative experience really work, a writer needs to construct sentences well, describe locations clearly and without becoming too wordy in creating detail, and also create characters whom we readers will enjoy enough to see ourselves within the character. Penney is exceptionally good at doing all of these maneuvers, which in itself is a kind of magic.

I want to thank the author, Elizabeth Penney, and her publisher, St Martin's Press, for providing this ARC. The comments within this review are my own. I also want to thank NetGalley for listing such a terrific mystery. I am not really a thriller reader, and so while I often wish that NetGalley provided separate categories for mysteries and thrillers, I am not going to quibble over the extra effort needed to locate such terrific books to read and review.

I love the setup of this series. Molly and her mom have returned to her mom's old British home to help Molly's aunt run the family bookstore. Mow Molly's building a life for herself there and (of course) solving mysteries. This installment features a death in the past plus a death now, archaeology, antiquities, and deaths by falling from buildings. Some of my favorite (?!) things! There's plenty of sleuthing, complicated relationships, and a parallel story within a story.

I'll admit that a story within a story--in this case, Molly is reading a new edition of Strawberry Girls, a children's story written by the first murder victim. I read a book to read THAT book, not a book within a book. However, it's handled pretty well here. But what makes no sense whatsoever is that Molly is reading it oh so slowly "to savor it," even once she finds that the characters were based on real people in the village. Of course this means the story can reveal many clues about those relationships in the past, and it's ludicrous to think that Molly would be reading just a teeny bit at a time. It's an intrusive reminder that an author is writing this book and controlling the flow of info and clues to the reader. I didn't want that intrusion at all.

Still, a really enjoyable read except for that one aspect!

Review copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley.

Chapter and Curse was one of my favorite cozy mysteries of 2021, and I was eager to dive into its sequel, A Treacherous Tale. After an incident (and disappearance) on the property of the author they had scheduled for a reading leads to more questions than answers, Molly, her family, friends, and two cats are back and on the tail of another case. My hopes were high, and A Treacherous Tale more than lived up to the strong impression made by its predecessor.

I enjoy books about books and—with the bookshop location—literature is at the heart of this series. One particular aspect that I liked about A Treacherous Tale, were the excerpts of a fictional book called Strawberry Girls. That story was interesting enough on its own, and I mentioned to my co-blogger that I would have read it by itself. That being said, I have to give Elizabeth Penney her props for how Strawberry Girls was used in the story, particularly how it related to the sleuthing that took place. There were so many secrets to uncover that it felt like there were twists around every corner.

The mystery was tightly woven and highly engaging, and from its introduction, I was hooked. The stakes were high, with one person dead and another missing—a number of suspects and no initial motivation beside potential opportunity—ensured that there was never a dull moment.

Besides the mystery and fun literary themes, the characters were a highlight. Strong characterizations abound for the familiar cast, but I also liked the new faces added for this story, particularly Iona. Molly’s personality shined through (she remains my favorite character from the series), and I liked the steady progression of her friendships and romantic life. It was great to see her settled into her life at the bookshop.

Overall, A Treacherous Tale was a fantastic sequel.

Disclaimer: this copy of the book was provided by the publisher (St. Martin's Paperbacks) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!

Molly Kimball, recent transplant from Vermont to Cambridge, is busy with her bookshop and her aristocratic beau, but when her uncle is suspected of murder, she flies on her bicycle to solve her second case.

In "A Treacherous Tale," Molly is organizing an event with local author Iona York, who is coming out with a new edition of her classic children's book. She visits Iona, only to discover the body of a local antiques dealer, who has fallen off the roof of Iona's house, where Molly's uncle was repairing the thatch.

Molly is a likeable heroine and has a great support system in her friends and family. While she does occasionally jump to a wrong conclusion, she generally follows the evidence and the reader is given all the clues they need to solve the case along with her. The secondary characters are important to the narrative, and don't just serve to enhance Molly.

Penney is a solid cozy writer, and I hope there are many more in this series. I like the Cambridge Bookshop series, but I admit I'm more partial to Penney's Apron Shop series. Both are well worth reading.

I received an advance copy from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

3.75/5 stars

The follow-up to Chapter and Curse was better than the first. The main characters Molly, Nina, and Aunt Violet are back with a stronger relationship and family bond. The relationships between Nina and her newly made friends are developing nicely. Both main and secondary characters are realistic, likable, and interesting. The mystery is well-written with aspects of reality and children’s fiction interwoven seamlessly to give the reader clues about who and why they committed the murder. I am enjoying this series and looking forward to reading more. I recommend this book to cozy mystery fans.

All thoughts and opinions are my own, and no one has influenced me.

Molly is settling in to her life in Cambridge, helping her mom and aunt run a bookshop, dating a hot guy (and dodging paparazzi) and continuing to get to know her adopted community. An opportunity to promote the re-issue of a favourite book from her childhood (including a reading by the author) seems perfect. At least until she discovers a dead body at the author's home, and starts to unravel the tragic story within the fairy story.

This is the 2nd in the Cambridge Bookshop series by Elizabeth Penney, following Chapter and Curse. If you are after a good solid basic cozy, with a sprinkling of chaste romance, and a likeable main character, this is for you. If you are fascinated by old books, and bookselling, this is even more a series for you. The added bonus in this installment is that Penney interweaves the chapters of the children's fairy tale that is about to be re-issued with the actual mystery. So, you get two stories in one, and both are well told.

The lovely cast of characters from Chapter and Curse are all here - the crew that play darts at the pub, Molly's mom (and her potential relationship with the local inspector) and the delightful Sir Jon, former spy. Molly's Cambridge is a lovely place to hang out on a rainy day - not a mask or mention of COVID in sight. The book would work quite well as part of a secondary school mystery fiction English option, or as part of a small group lit circle. Molly is a late 20-something, so students might find her relatable.

If I have any reservations about the series, it is that is extraordinarily white. There are some very minor characters of colour and I keep waiting for one of them to be developed and give a different perspective on the bucolic townlife, but it has not happened yet.

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the e-arc.

I found the premise a fresh take on a common mainstay of cozies, a bookshop owner.
The setting was beautifully described and the characters were engaging and interesting.
The whodunit was top notch and kept me entertained.
I did not give it five stars as I found the protagonist’s love life was distracting.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

What a pleasure it is to be back with Molly, Kieran and the rest of the gang. Penney’s writing is superb, her characters are delightful and she’s managed the balance of red herrings and clues to keep the mystery flowing right to the end. I especially liked the children’s book story that’s included. I look forward to reading what comes next. This is book two of the Cambridge Bookshop series, so be sure to snag the first in the series, Chapter and Curse, today.

This was such a good cozy mystery to get lost in that I just kept reading for hours. I loved the format of including a book within the book. Both stories are enjoyable. This is the second book in the series and I haven't read the first one, but this book is easily read as a stand alone. The book cover drew me in - it's really cute.

Molly works at her family's bookstore, Thoma Marlowe-Manuscripts and Folios where she's been working to revitalize it and attract more business. She has a boyfriend, Kieran, who runs a bike shop in town and comes from an intimidating, wealthy family. Molly has discovered a childrens classic, The Strawberry Girls, and discovers the author lives nearby. She sets up a meeting with the author, Iona, to discuss a reading at the bookstore. While visiting Iona, a man is discovered dead in the garden. He seems to have fallen from the roof. However, something is suspicious about his death -why was he on the roof? what was he doing here? Molly's uncle had been working on the roof that morning but was gone when Molly arrived, having been on a break. Had he been involved? Also, on the same day one of Iona's daughters mysteriously disappears. Her daughter had been working on a nearby archological excavation. Had she been involved in the man's death? Has something bad happened to her? Molly also learns of a long ago death of Iona's husband, who died from a suspicous fall from a tower. Had his death been a murder? Could Iona be involved in both?

This was definitely a fun mystery to follow. Molly keeps following clues and is determined to find out, at least, the missing girl, and to clear her uncle of the man's murder. She and her friends dig into every lead they can find trying to solve the mystery. I loved how the book The Strawberry Girls reflected on the present day story. This was definitely a well thought out plot that was complex and kept my attention. The characters were fun and interesting.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on August 23, 2022.

A Treacherous Tale by Elizabeth Penney is the second book in the Cambridge Bookshop cozy mystery series. I really enjoyed this book. Amateur sleuth Molly Kimball and her mother visit a local author and find the deceased friend of the author in the garden. Molly has no plans to get involved but... Yep, she does. It was quite interesting to follow along as Molly and her friends discovered clues to eventually solve the mystery. This is a great addition to the series.