Judged by its Cover: Romance Reader Mysteries - Book 2

She reads people like she reads romance novels. This time, she knew exactly what she was walking into. Deana Hartley solved one murder and has no plans to solve another. She has a bookstore to run and a Valentine's fundraiser to pull off: Blind Date with a Book, sixty novels wrapped in brown paper, clues on the tags instead of titles, every dollar going to the women's shelter. Then Marissa Carney arrives. The book influencer has half a million followers and a gift for ending careers with a compliment, and she has asked for a private meeting in the Chapter & Verse stockroom. By the end of the night she is dead in it, buried in the same brown paper the books were wrapped in, a romance cover laid over her face. The guest list is full of grudges, and when the police turn toward her boss Wren, Deana stops pretending she is only a bookseller. Meanwhile, Link's ex-girlfriend has arrived in town, a recruiter is dangling a salary the store could never match, and Deana has opinions about all of it that she has no intention of examining. Every guest that night arrived with a story about themselves. Deana has to find the one that doesn't hold.