Bound by Murder

This third installment in Laura Gail Black's cozy series will appeal to fans of Ellery Adams and Paige Shelton. Antiquarian bookseller Jenna Quinn is enjoying the wedding fever at the Hokes Bluff Inn, which has recently started hosting ceremonies on its grounds, until her former fiancé, Blake Emerson, arrives with his bride-to-be, Missy Plott. Blake has made it plain that he wants Jenna back, whatever the fallout. The fallout becomes serious when Missy is found dead. Blake was the last person known to have seen her alive, and the evidence points squarely at him. He asks Jenna to help him clear his name, and his mother, Gwendolyn, is just as determined to see him exonerated.

Jenna does not believe Blake could have committed murder, so she begins searching for other suspects. One possibility is Missy's former boyfriend, who swears his love for her would outlast death itself. Another is Missy's bitter sister, who had secretly been infatuated with that same ex-boyfriend.

New evidence connects Missy's death to embezzlement and a separate killing, the same kinds of crimes that wrongly drew suspicion toward Jenna less than a year earlier. As Gwendolyn keeps pleading with her, Jenna starts to wonder whether Blake might truly be innocent.

Jenna must now decide whether to gamble her reputation, her growing relationship with her boyfriend, and perhaps her own life, or to let a man who may be innocent go to prison.