“Roach – bookseller, loner and true crime obsessive – is not interested in making friends. She has all the company she needs in her serial killer books, murder podcasts and her pet snail, Bleep. That is, until Laura joins the bookshop. Smelling of roses, with her cute literary tote bags and beautiful poetry, she’s everyone’s new favourite bookseller. But beneath the shiny veneer, Roach senses a darkness within Laura, the same darkness Roach possesses. As Roach’s curiosity blooms into morbid obsession, it becomes clear that she is prepared to infiltrate Laura’s life at any cost.”
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Publication Date: April 25th 2023
A story of obsession told from two points of view, Death of a Bookseller is a tense story from the get go. Roach and Laura work at the same bookstore. At first, Roach doesn’t like how put together and pretentious Laura is, but as the story progresses, we see her fall into an obsession with her, going to lengths to infiltrate her life. Laura, on the other hand, has not liked Roach since she first set foot into the same room as her, with no clear explanation as to why.
Roach is an avid true crime fan, and Laura couldn’t dislike it more, so as a reader, you can see how they clash, but as the story develops, you learn things about each girl that does offer an explanation as to why they feel the way they do about one another.
I found myself disliking both of the main characters, and I really hope that was Alice’s (she/her) intention, as I would feel terrible for disliking someone who was written to be likeable so much! While on the subject of the main characters, I feel like there are a lot of side characters who wouldn’t have made a difference to the story if they weren’t there at all. I think some of them were only names to fill the bookshop employees up. The ones that do add to the story, however, could have been developed a bit more in order to understand who they are expect from side characters in Roach and Laura’s lives respectively.
From what I’d read of the blurb and online, I thought that there would be a lot more action to this one, and not just the small snippet we are given; I went in thinking that there would be a death needing to be figured out, but the path the book took was interesting nonetheless. I understand why each girl feels the way they do, and maybe I was somewhat hopeful in the same sense as Roach, that they’d become friends eventually, which means that I never saw the final few chapters coming.
I commend Alice on keeping me guessing until the last page, and while that last page may have been obvious to some, it wasn’t to me. I love when I finish a book with last minute shock.
Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC!
All the love,
Jade x
Tea Stains and Book Spines 