If you want something a little different, well you have come across the right book post. Picture this – a quaint small town, an enchanted secondhand bookshop, and dashing, morally grey fictional suitors amid the shelves. Oh, and through in a murder mystery into this reverse harem paranormal romance for good measure. Welcome to the Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries and I am sure you will enjoy your stay.

Book boyfriends may do it better, but they’re more trouble than they’re worth. After being fired from my dream fashion job, I return home to my village under a cloud of failure and take a job at the quaint Nevermore Bookshop. I’m hoping for an easy few months while I get my life together. But this is no ordinary bookshop. A mysterious curse on Nevermore brings infamous fictional villains from classic literature to life in the real world. My “easy” job involves rescuing customers from a 6-foot-4, grumpy, tattooed Heathcliff, drinking tea and evading the authorities with sophisticated villain Moriarty, and making art with Edgar Allen Poe’s shy, cheeky, raven shifter, Quoth. As if that isn’t crazy enough, my ex-best friend shows up dead with a knife in her back, and I’m the chief suspect. I’m going to have to Agatha Christie this shiz if I want to clear my name. Oh, and those three fictional villains? They like to share. The Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries are what you get when all your book boyfriends come to life. Join a brooding antihero, a master criminal, a cheeky raven, and a heroine with a big heart (and an even bigger book collection) in this spicy cozy fantasy series.

It may sound like a lot, and the perspective tone in the blurb isn’t what you get with Mina Wilde, which I am thankful for. It all sounds a little chaotic, and that’s in part because it is, but it is also fantastically whimsical, exciting, and funny. The dynamics between the group are established, but as things take a turn for the worst and secrets are revealed, a death occurs on the bookshop’s premises, and Mina is labelled as the chief suspect, the chaos starts to bleed into the semi-professional set-up that has been created. It’s not all bad, but it certainly makes the tension rise and the interactions and relationships between characters all the more intriguing.

The plot is a simple yet well-done murder mystery, and it is honestly quite a laugh seeing how these morally grey characters brought to life handle the investigative processes surrounding the case (a case they should not be touching or going anywhere near, but where’s the fun in letting the police do their jobs?) And who could forget the pinnacle of small town living – the busybodies that stir up all sorts of gossip and say one too many things that no one should be hearing in public. It is a fun, light-hearted murder mystery with it’s spicy undertones and undoubtedly intentional setup for the future novels, of which I fully intend to read.

Romance readers will have fun with this one, and if you are a light consumer of murder mystery, perhaps needing a little more to keep your engagement throughout the novel, then A Dead and Stormy Night is something I would suggest you look into. We all could do with a full and saucy read to shake off a rough week, right? I give this series extra points in my heart as Steffanie Holmes is a New Zealander and she is legally blind. There is disability rep in this novel that I think is going to provide some real heartfelt and important messages in future books, and the fact we have a character who is losing their eyesight as a romance lead in a paranormal fantasy murder mystery romance is pretty cool.

I hope more people give A Dead and Stormy Night and the Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries a go. You can line them up for October’s spooky season reads or dip in and out of them over the colder months. With these brooding and dangerous fictional antiheroes and villains hanging around, I think it’s easy to say I will be returning to this series shortly!