Review: Tome to Tomb by A.C.F. Bookens

Tome To Tomb (St. Marin’s Cozy Mystery #5)
by A.C.F. Bookens

My Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Cozy Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f

Blurb:
A dead body in Santa’s lap is not what Harvey Beckett wanted for Christmas.

The streets of St. Marin’s are decorated for Christmas, and Harvey Beckett has decided that she’ll host Santa Claus at her bookstore, reviving the town’s long-standing tradition. But on the first day of the holiday season, a man stumbles into Santa’s lap and dies, threatening the holiday spirit . . . and bringing a slew of questions that Harvey can’t resist trying to answer.

Will Harvey’s queries land her, her friends – and their dogs – in a load of trouble?

My Review

Tome to Tomb is the fifth book in this cozy mystery series. I had a migraine and just wanted to read something in a series I already knew and picked this one up. Just like the previous books it’s a great read, I like reading about the characters and how they interact as well as Harvey’s bookstore.

Where I struggled with this book a bit is especially the later part. The mystery somehow felt a bit heavier and sadder than most with how the victim is suspected to be an Angel of Mercy and how somehow took their revenge on him. The confrontation scene felt uncomfortable tense and scary.

Then there was the whole part with a real life author making an appearance in this book, which just felt off to me. He actually interacts with the characters and that mix of a real life author in fiction was just weird as well as the fact that the author of this book came up with how this real life author and their publisher would act. And on top of that I felt it shook up the balance of the books being recommended, with extra focus on this specific author, while I like the mix and variety of recommend books titles throughout. Oh and the side character Max is really starting to annoy me.

Besides those points I did have a great time reading this one. It’s always a joy to return to this series and read about the characters and the bookstore. I like reading about Harvey and her friends and family and how they all are there for each other. This one had a bit of Christmas spirit as well. I also thought it interesting how Harvey is involved in the mystery and still gets clues, without actually going out and investigating. I did manage to guess who the murderer was and there weren’t as many twists in this mystery, but it was still interesting seeing how it progressed. I preferred the daily life parts in this book though over the mystery.

To summarize: I really like this series and this was another solid read. I like returning to this town and reading about the characters and Harvey’s bookstore. I did struggle a bit with the later part of this book was the mystery has some dark and heavy undertones and the confrontation scene felt uncomfortable tense. There also is an appearance of a real life author in the book, that just felt off to me. It felt strange to read about a real author and I felt it upset the balance of recommending a variety of books with so much focus on this author. Despite that I still mostly enjoyed this book, especially the first half or so. I managed to predict who the murderer was, but it still was interesting to see it play out. The daily life and bookstore scenes were my favorite of this one and I look forward to the next book!

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.