Murder in the Margins

Mara Bell came home to close a bookshop. Instead, she inherits a secret hidden in the margins of a beloved coastal novel—and the opening moves of a very real murder mystery.After her great-aunt's death, rare-book conservator Mara returns to Gull Point just as its Winter Pages festival begins. A newly surfaced manuscript of the town's celebrated novel, The Tide Book, promises to rewrite literary history—until collector Silas Wren is found dead in the shop's reading room. The evidence points to a valuable old book and a long-buried claim of authorship. The one copy that might clear the name of a forgotten woman is annotated in a hand Mara recognizes.With a sharp-witted bookseller, a skeptical police chief, an elderly cat who refuses to leave the archives, and a town full of people with reasons to keep the past closed, Mara follows ink, paper, and tiny inconsistencies to the truth. Each clue brings her closer to solving the murder—and to deciding whether to keep The Lantern Room or let Gull Point's last independent bookshop disappear.A warm, puzzle-forward coastal cozy mystery for readers who love bookish whodunits, amateur sleuths, charming small towns, gentle romance, and cats who supervise investigations. The first book in the A Gull Point Bookshop Mystery series.