To help save her family’s floundering Colorado bookstore, Starlit Bookshop, newly minted Ph.D. Emma Starrs agrees to plan a mystery-themed dinner party for her wealthy, well-connected high school classmate Tabitha Baxter. It’s a delightful evening of cocktails and conjecture until Tabitha’s husband, Tip—hosting the affair in the guise of Edgar Allan Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin—winds up murdered.
In a heartbeat, Emma and her aunt Nora, a famous mystery writer, become suspects. Emma is sure the party’s over for Starlit events, until celebrated author Calliope Nightfall, whose gothic sensibilities are intrigued by the circumstances, implores the bookseller to create a Poe-themed launch event for her latest tome. Throwing a bash to die for while searching for additional clues is already enough to drive Emma stark raven mad, but another shocking crime soon reveals that Silvercrest has not yet reached the final chapter of the puzzling case.
Someone in this charming artistic community has murder on the mind, and if Emma cannot outwit the killer, she and her beloved aunt will land behind bars, to walk free nevermore.
Hello! My name is Emma Starrs. I moved home to Colorado a few months back when my aunt called me to let me know that our family business, Starlit Bookshop, was in danger of going under.
Silvercrest is a small college town at the foot of the mountains next to a river. It’s beautiful all year round. If you have to move somewhere, this is about a serene a place as you could ask for.
Since I’ve been home, I agreed to try and bring in more business by planning more literary events. Such work is right up my alley since I’ve spent much of my life studying literature and creative writing—most recently in a PhD program where I focused on the mystery genre.
Suffice it to say that I was excited that the first event I was hired to plan was a murder mystery dinner party.
Even if the person who hired me is my nemesis.
How I ever ended up with a nemesis is beyond me. Tabitha Baxter just has always had it out for me.
But I figured I could handle working with her…for a single night…especially given the extravagant amount she was offering to pay.
Happily, my aunt Nora, a colleague of Tabitha’s husband, was invited to the event. She’s a larger-than-life kind of personality, and it made me feel better to know she was there too.
Unfortunately, the murder mystery dinner party ended with an actual murder.
And now I’m suddenly trying to clear not only my aunt’s name but perhaps also my own…
About the author:
Cynthia Kuhn is an English professor and author of the Starlit Bookshop Mysteries and the Lila Maclean Academic Mysteries. Her work has also appeared in Mystery Most Edible, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Copper Nickel, Prick of the Spindle, Mama PhD, and other publications. Honors include an Agatha Award, a William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant, and Lefty Award nominations. Originally from upstate New York, she lives in Colorado with her family. For more information, please visit
cynthiakuhn.net.
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