The Mysterious Life of Dewey Decimal from the Beloved Bookroom Mystery Series by Dorothy St. James

Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow.

Purr…. Purr…

Tru: Um, Dewey, Sweetie, the readers don’t speak cat. Honestly, I don’t either. I wish I did since I know you always figure out who’s behind the troubles plaguing our town faster than anyone else.

Meeeeow.

Tru: You can twitch your tail at me all you want. It still won’t get me to understand you. I’m sorry that we’re not as clever as a cat. But we’re not. We’re only human, after all. Could you, please, humor us? Just this once?

Meow.

Tru: Fine. I’ll go see if Tori is willing to write something for these kind readers about her coffee shop. Keep an eye on the bookroom. I’ll be back in about an hour.

Meow. Me-you…you understand cat. You must. You can understand what I’m saying. Poor Tru, her parents never let her have a pet as a child, so she never learned to speak cat. She’s my person. I picked her one night because she needed me. And even though I’m an alley cat, I do enjoy being able to show my superiority help my person.

I live with Tru at her charming cottage in Cypress. That’s a small town in South Carolina. I’m a southern cat with southern manners, mind you. I spend most of my time teaching Tru about cats. Though she sometimes makes mistakes—like not buying me enough toys—I can’t complain. She’s a good person. And the guy she’s dating showers me with enough toys to make up for Tru’s shortcomings in that area. She’d better keep him around.

Tru hates to leave me home alone for long periods of time. That’s why she sneaks me into work with her and takes me down to her secret bookroom in the library’s basement. I love spending time with the books down there! They are filled with such delightful smells. It’s almost as if I can sniff out the stories hidden in their pages.

Don’t get me wrong, Tru’s cottage is filled with bookshelves in every room, except the bathroom. But the basement bookroom? It’s stuffed to the brim with books. And booklovers come and hang out in the basement with me. They are nearly as interesting as the books.

Because I’m a cat, humans think they can talk in front of me or do things in front of me and I won’t notice. How silly is that? Of course I’ll notice. I notice more than most humans. I try to let Tru know what I know, but since she can’t talk cat, she doesn’t understand nearly anything I tell her. But that doesn’t stop me from trying. Luckily, Tru and her friends are uncannily good at figuring things out for themselves. It might take them a little longer. They aren’t cats, for goodness sake. But they eventually get to the solution.

I hope you’ll join me in the pages of Tru’s latest adventure in A BOOK CLUB TO DIE FOR. It might be her most challenging one yet. What looks like an open and shut case to the police will put her boyfriend’s mother in jail for murder. Tru has promised to try and find another answer. The more she looks into the murder of the president of the local book club, the more she worries that she won’t like the answer she’s going to find.

I’m trying to support her as much as I can. Perhaps you can help her too.

Dorothy St. James is the author of several cozy mystery series. She lives in the Lowcountry of South Carolina with her family and neurotic pets. She often can be found at the local library, searching for her next favorite read. You can also find Dorothy on social media at: Facebook – Twitter: @dorothywrites – Instagram: @dorothymcfalls – TikTok: @dorothywrites Or sign up for her newsletter

 

 

 

A Book Club to Die For

 

(A Beloved Bookroom)
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – Cypress, South Carolina
Berkley (November 1, 2022)
Hardcover : 304 pages

When a member of an exclusive book club is checked out, spunky librarian Trudell Becket must sort fact from fiction to solve the murder.

The Cypress Arete Society is one of the town’s oldest and most exclusive clubs. When assistant librarian Trudell Becket is invited to speak to the group about the library, its modernization, and her efforts to bring printed books to the reading public, her friend Flossie invites herself along.

Flossie has been on the book club’s waiting list for five years, and she’s determined to find out why she’s never received an invitation to join.

But not long after Tru and Flossie arrive for the meeting, they’re shocked to find the club’s president, Rebecca White, dead in the kitchen. Rebecca was a former TV actress and local celebrity, but was not known for being patient or pleasant. She’d been particularly unkind to the book club’s host for the evening, who also happens to be the mother of Detective Jace Bailey, Tru’s boyfriend. And Rebecca had made it clear that she didn’t think Flossie was book club material.

With her boyfriend and one of her best friends wrapped up in a murder, Tru has to work fast to figure out who cut Rebecca’s story short before the killer takes another victim out of circulation….

Purchase Links:
Amazon – Penguin Random House – B&N – Kobo – IndieBound

 

 

Librarians are keepers of knowledge, caretakers of truth, and sowers of wisdom. Many of us rush out to share the world with our communities with the enthusiasm of a child who has suddenly mastered a new skill. We want people to know, to know…well, everything.

This is our mission. This is our passion.

We are the bringers.

We are the beacons cutting through the darkest of nights.

I should be thrilled to be able to provide this service to a local book club that calling itself the Arete Society. So why did I have this sudden desire to turn around, march back to my car, and drive home as fast as my old Camry would take me?

I’d been asked to give a presentation. I’d been tasked to share my knowledge of books and my experiences working at the library with a group of ladies who love books as much as I do. I lived for moments like this.

Didn’t I?

Usually, yes.

But.

Not.

Tonight.

“Trudell Becket, what’s got you dragging your feet like this?” Flossie Finnegan-Baker turned her wheelchair toward me. “I do believe a cornucopia of slugs just passed us.”

“Cornucopia? Of slugs?” I asked. That couldn’t be right. But before she could explain that a group of slugs was indeed called a cornucopia, I said, “Never mind.” Flossie was rarely wrong when it came to grammar and etymology. Besides, slugs weren’t important. “This,” I said. “This is a mistake.” I felt the truth of it like a stone in my gut. I stood in the middle of the long, winding sidewalk leading up to Hazel Bailey’s front porch and scrunched my eyes closed. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“You’re suffering from a case of the jitters.” My friend touched my hand. I looked at her, and she smiled encouragingly at me. Flossie had dressed for the book club meeting in muted shades of turquoise and tan. The colors spiraled together on her long, homemade tie-dyed dress, but it was quite a shift from the bright (and often) clashing colors she usually wore. She’d attached a large golden pin in the shape of Edgar Allen Poe’s face to the collar of the thick white button-up sweater she’d worn over her dress. “Honey, even I get the jitters every time I do something new. Everyone does. That’s why you brought me. To have your back. And I do. I’ve got your back. And you’ve got this. Let’s go.”

Our host lived at the edge of town in the middle of a forest of cypress trees that gave the town its name. The cypress’s silvery trunks stood tall and straight, like the spines of books on a shelf, gleaming in the fading embers of the sunset.

Books were the reason I’d been asked to speak to the Arete Society. And those same books were the reason I couldn’t go through with it.

 

 

 

 

A library-themed tote bag filled with books and goodies.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

 

 
[addthis tool=addthis_horizontal_follow_toolbox]