Murder at the Lonely Gnome Bookshop

Vancouver Island’s Loon Bay is home to retirees spending their golden years in a seaside community far from city stress. And Zoey Erwin just inherited the town’s Lonely Gnome Bookshop following her uncle’s sudden passing. . .

After blowing the whistle on her boss/boyfriend for his illegal corporate shenanigans, Zoey lost both her accounting job and her relationship. Tainted by the scandal, she’s been having trouble rebooting her career. So when her Uncle Dean dies, leaving her his bookstore, Zoey travels cross country from New York City to settle his estate and consider her future.

Run down and desperately in need of repair, The Lonely Gnome Bookshop is overrun with inventory between crammed shelves and teetering piles of paperbacks. Potted plants decorate what little empty spaces there are, leaves and vines intertwining among the literary treasures and pulpy trash. Standing guard to this bastion of the written word is a solitary gnome statue, whose colors may be fading but whose scowl is aimed at every customer approaching the door.

Zoey’s Aunt Barb, a realtor, thinks it best to level the shop and sell the property. But after spending a few days in town with the locals, Zoey discovers that the Lonely Gnome was a pillar of the community and decides to restore it— only to learn that her uncle’s solitary, bookish life was more complicated than it seemed, and that he may have been murdered by one of Loon Bay’s residents . . .