Early Review – Tomes, Scones, and Crones (Three Tomes Bookshop, Book 1) by Colleen Gleason (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 222 pages
Publisher: Oliver Heber Books
Release Date: October 12, 2021
ASIN: B09BLCWM77
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Three Tomes Bookshop series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 3/5 stars
“At forty-eight, Jacqueline Finch has a nice, easy life with few responsibilities: she’s been a librarian in Chicago for twenty-five years, she doesn’t have a husband, children, or pets, and she’s just coasting along, enjoying her books and a small flower garden now that she’s over the hill.
That is, until the Universe (helped by three old crones) has other ideas.
All at once, Jacqueline’s staid (and boring) life is upended, and the next thing she knows, she’s heading off to Button Cove to start a new life as the owner of Three Tomes Bookshop.
The bookstore is a darling place, and Jacqueline is almost ready to be excited about this new opportunity…until Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Danvers show up. Somehow, the literary characters of Sherlock Holmes’s landlady and Rebecca deWinter’s creepy and sardonic housekeeper are living persons who work at the bookshop (when they aren’t bickering with each other). Not only does Jacqueline have to contend with them—and the idea that people regularly eat pastries while reading books in her store!—but the morning after she arrives, the body of a dead man is found on her property.
Things start to get even more strange after that: Jacqueline is befriended by three old women who bear a startling resemblance to the Witches Three from Macbeth, an actual witch shows up at her bookshop and accuses Jacqueline of killing her brother, and the two women who own businesses across the street seem determined to befriend Jacqueline.
And then there’s the police detective with the very definite hot-Viking vibe who shows up to investigate the dead body…
The next thing Jacqueline knows, her staid and simple life is no longer quiet and unassuming, and she’s got crones, curses, and crocodiles to deal with.
And when a new literary character appears on the scene…things start to get even more hairy and Jacqueline is suddenly faced with a horrible life and death situation that will totally push her out of her comfort zone…if she’s brave enough to let it.
After all, isn’t forty-eight too late for an old dog to learn new tricks?”
Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Three Tomes Bookshop series. I got a copy of this book through NetGalley to review. Previous to this I read Gleason’s Gardella Vampire Hunters series (liked it) and her Stoker & Holmes series (okay but not great).
Thoughts: Eh, this was okay. I really liked some of the ideas in here but never really liked the characters or the plot that much. The idea of a magic bookshop, snarky cats, and copious amounts of tea sounds like something I would love. However, the whole thing felt a bit flat to me.
The writing style and plot were simplistic and I just never loved any of the characters here. This is the type of story that should be very character driven and it wasn’t. Even the romantic interest for your main protagonist was just so-so (there was a lot of obsessing over his hands, but to each their own).
There are some funny parts and the book is very light-hearted. I thought the friendship that Jacqueline developed with the other shop-owners was cute but felt a bit insta-friendship. These characters didn’t really have anything that bound them together and the friendship felt forced and fake to me…it was a bit too good to be true.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was a pretty quick read but also a book I will forget about as soon as I write this review. It’s not awful but also not memorable. If you want some good paranormal women’s fiction I recommend the Glimmer Lake/Moonstone Cove series by Elizabeth Hunter or The Forty Proof series by Shannon Mayer. Those series are much more well done than this one. I think I am done with Gleason for a bit, she’s pretty hit or miss for me and over the last few years it’s been a lot more misses than hits.
