Off the Books by Lucy Arlington

First Line: I loved wintertime in the quaint hamlet of Inspiration Valley, especially when it snowed, which wasn't often.

Seldom can your job actually help you with your wedding plans, but that's what's happening with Lila Wilkins. The Novel Idea Literary Agency has created a week-long celebration of all things wedding for Inspiration Valley. However, when a man with ties to several of the agency's authors is found dead, facedown in a wedding cake, those authors find themselves at the top of the suspect list. Lila is going to have to work fast!

I've enjoyed Lucy Arlington's Novel Idea cozy series from the start. Off the Books-- like the other books in the series-- provides a good, solid mystery as well as a pleasant visit with a cast of characters who have become friends. 

There's a bit more delving into the personalities of Lila and her boss Bentley here in book four. Lila is getting a severe case of pre-wedding jitters, and she really has to figure out why. Her boss Bentley has always been the high-handed genius who expects everyone to tug their forelocks when she snaps her fingers. With the addition of one little dog named Olive, we are given some insight into this demanding woman's character, and it's a welcome one. 

One of the things I have always enjoyed about this series is its idyllic "bookworm heaven" setting of Inspiration Valley. Reading about this special place (that should exist but doesn't) is a welcome bit of fantasy for me. An added bonus is that each book uncovers more of the inner workings of a literary agency and how it deals with new authors, query letters, publicity, and manuscripts. Like me, many readers enjoy learning about what goes on behind the scenes to create the books we all love.

As I was reading Off the Books, I got the feeling that the series may be coming to an end because many loose ends that had been left dangling for a book or two (or three) were neatly tied up. However, that probably isn't the case. The first three books in the series were written by Ellery Adams and Sylvia May. This fourth book was written by Susan Furlong, and Furlong may have wanted to tie off some old plot threads in order to introduce some of her own in future books. I hope that is the case because this is one of my favorite series.
 

Off the Books by Lucy Arlington

ISBN: 9780425276679

Berkley Prime Crime © 2016

Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

Cozy Mystery, #5 Novel Idea mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.


 

Played by the Book by Lucy Arlington

First Line: I was completely engrossed in reading my latest proposal, a cozy mystery set in a charming English hamlet, when a couple of specks of dirt fell across my paper.

Damian York, former local boy and now a popular television show host, has returned to Inspiration Valley, North Carolina, and the owner of the Novel Idea Literary Agency is thrilled. York will be touting his new gardening book, and Bentley Burlington-Duke is filled with ideas for a splendid garden party launch. All of those ideas are immediately placed on Lila Wilkins' to-do list. 

Lila is spread too thin. Before it was known that York was coming to town, she had little time to spend with the man in her life; now she's got a huge party to plan, and she has to get her yard spruced up for the town's annual garden walk. That garden walk's going to have to be put on hold however, when Lila finds a skull in her flowerbed. With that grisly discovery, secrets begin bubbling to the surface in Inspiration Valley, and Lila has one more item on her to-do list: find a killer.

I've enjoyed this series since its inception. Lila Wilkins is a smart, optimistic, talented woman who grabbed the chance to follow her bliss. She's found it at the Novel Idea Literary Agency and in the arms of a police officer named Sean. Lila's job is one of the many reasons why I enjoy this series; I love learning how a literary agency works. Having Damian York be an expert in landscaping, interior design, and food was icing on the cake because I'm extremely interested in all three-- as long as I'm not expected to be in charge of the third.

In this fourth book, the author deals with the Cabot Cove Syndrome-- what happens when a small town has recurring dead bodies. Lila is now known as the "murder magnet" since she's always the one who stumbles over the corpses. She is not happy with her new nickname. In fact, Played by the Book reminded me so much of Cabot Cove that I almost immediately knew the identity of the killer.

But knowing that is small beans in a character-driven mystery, and Arlington has delivered a fine cast of secondary characters, from Lila's son, to the man in her life, to her mother, to her best friend, and on to the people with whom she works. An interesting group of people living and working in an idyllic town-- perfect weekend reading.

But by the end, I had a strong feeling that this is the last book in the series. There was no preview chapter of the next book, and throughout Lila seemed to be paying more attention to tying up loose ends with all the most important people in her life than she was in solving the mystery. If this is indeed the case, I will be sorry to see the series end, but I'll also look forward to finding out what Lucy Arlington has in store for us next.
 

Played by the Book by Lucy Arlington

ISBN: 9780425276631

Berkley Prime Crime © 2015

Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages

Cozy Mystery, #4 Novel Idea mystery

Rating: B

Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen  

Books, Cooks, and Crooks by Lucy Arlington

First Line: After a long day of contract negotiations, phone calls to authors and editors, and a meeting with my fellow literary agents, the last thing I expected was to come home to find my kitchen on fire.

The Taste of the Town festival is almost ready to hit Inspiration Valley, North Carolina. The Novel Idea Literary Agency is organizing a celebrity chef event, and one of its agents, Lila Wilkins, is right in the thick of things. Unfortunately things get off to a very rocky start. After the welcome dinner given for all the chefs, an oven in the demo kitchen explodes, killing one of the star cooks. Now Lila has to figure out which one of her clients is a killer.

I continue to enjoy this Novel Idea cozy series created by the writing team known as Lucy Arlington. In Inspiration Valley, they have created a town in which all lovers of books, food, and the arts would love to live. It's such a perfect place, in fact, that the setting gives the series a bit of a fairy tale aspect, and it's one in which I love to escape whenever a new book appears.

The cast of characters is varied and well-drawn, and adding a group of television chefs with their quirks and egos increases the enjoyment factor. Lila Wilkins is at the book's heart, and her life is not a static one. We get to watch her son grow from boy to man, we see her relationship with her mother change, and her growing attachment to police officer Sean Griffiths touches on all aspects of her life. I particularly like the relationship between Lila and Sean; it isn't the usual one where the law enforcement man in the heroine's life frowns upon her doing her own investigating. Sean sees Lila for who she is, and he's willing to work with her instead of against her. It makes a refreshing change.

One of the best things about this series is that readers have the feeling that they are getting behind-the-scenes looks at what it's like to work at a literary agency. Not only do they get that here, but there's the added bonus of insider views of the television culinary scene. What are those celebrity chefs really like when the cameras aren't rolling? How do they interact with each other? Why do they do what they do?

There's only one thing that kept me from thoroughly enjoying Books, Cooks, and Crooks: very early on when Lila is giving the chefs and their entourages a guided tour of where they'll be working, clues to what is going to happen-- and who's going to do it-- are practically gift wrapped and presented to readers. However, with a series that has so much richness and depth in both characters and situations, this was only a minor annoyance. Bring on Book Four!

Books, Cooks, and Crooks by Lucy Arlington

ISBN:  9780425252246

Berkley Prime Crime © 2014

Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

Cozy Mystery, #3 Novel Idea mystery

Rating: B

Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.

Every Trick in the Book by Lucy Arlington

First Line: By the middle of October, the heat and lassitude of a Southern summer had finally loosed its hold over the quaint, artsy town of Inspiration Valley.

Everything's coming up roses for Lila Wilkins. Perfect boyfriend. Perfect house. Perfect job. Now a full-time literary agent for the Novel Idea Agency, Lila's been put in charge of some of the details for the upcoming Book and Author Festival in Inspiration Valley, North Carolina. She's looking forward to finding some talented new writers, but what she does find is the body of a New York City editor who bore an uncanny resemblance to Lila herself. When an author is killed, Lila has a feeling that the two deaths are linked-- and she just may have the manuscript that proves her hunch.

Having enjoyed the first book in this series, Buried in a Book, I looked forward to reading the second outing of Lila Wilkins with a great deal of anticipation. I certainly wasn't disappointed. This is a cozy series with layers, and it's a delight to peel each one back slowly.

There's a fine group of characters led by Lila herself. Her son, Trey, has asserted a measure of independence since graduating from high school, and instead of going straight to college as Lila had hoped, he's been working as part of a commune. Her mother-- who has her own business as a psychic-- is both blessing and curse to this single mother. Lila's friends and co-workers round out the cast with quite a variety of personalities and attitudes.

The mystery is a strong one in Every Trick in the Book. The creepy, pulse-raising killer is seen in flashes throughout, but what's truly puzzling is said killer's true identity and motivation for the crimes.

The thing I've grown to love the most in this fledgling series is the fact that its setting of a literary agency is more than a thin veneer used to hook readers before a fast segue way to a murder. I actually feel as though I'm learning what goes on behind those doors. In this book, more is learned about how to get a book ready for submission as Lila reads manuscripts and makes suggestions for changes to the writers. We also get to see Lila contacting editors to whom she's trying to sell the books. She's doing her best to make dreams come true, and it's fun to feel as though you're in on the process.

As hard as I try not to be any sort of snob when it comes to my reading, I think I am... a bit... when it comes to cozies. For some reason I don't seem to rate them "five star" reads as compared to the other mystery subgenres in which I regularly indulge. Cozies always seem to me to fall on the lighter, fun, read-in-an-afternoon category as opposed to the books I tend to wave under people's noses and insist they read. I think that's always been a reason why this subgenre never gets taken seriously by either the majority of the reading public or the world of publishing.

I'm thrilled to say that lately I've read two cozies that are making me rethink my attitude. Every Trick in the Book is one of them. Yes, this series may be set in a perfect little village dedicated to the arts, but there's real depth here. The characters are what you'd find in any cozy worth its salt, but there's a richness to them that you don't always see-- they face problems beyond finding out whodunit, and they are proud, contributing members to their community. The murders aren't just lessons in deduction, they point out real and oftentimes heartbreaking problems. And the setting? It's not just a marketing tool.

Every Trick in the Book is a cozy that "I-only-read-cozies" readers will love, and one that readers like me-- who love every subgenre from cozy to hard-boiled-- will sit up and say, "Hey... now this I like. A lot!"  I can't wait for book #3 in the Novel Idea series.

Every Trick in the Book by Lucy Arlington

ISBN: 9780425251676

Berkley Prime Crime © 2013

Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

Cozy Mystery, #2 Novel Idea mystery

Rating: A

Source: Paperback Swap

Buried in a Book by Lucy Arlington

Title: Buried in a Book
Author: Lucy Arlington
ISBN: 9780425246191
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime, 2012
Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages
Genre: Cozy, #1 Novel Idea Mystery
Rating: B+
Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.

First Line: I thought I'd be writing articles about church bazaars and Girl Scout cookie sales until I retired, so you can imagine my surprise when, at forty-five years of age, I was handed my very first pink slip.

Newly unemployed journalist Lila Wilkins needs a job-- not just because she has to keep body and soul together-- but because she has a son who will be enrolling in college very, very soon. Almost as if they heard her cry for help, the Novel Idea Literary Agency in Inspiration Valley, North Carolina, places a newspaper ad for an intern. Lila applies, she's hired, and on her first day an aspiring author drops dead in the office. No one seems to care much about the man's death; after all, he was just some smelly vagrant who came in every day and drove them crazy. Tender-hearted Lila thinks the man deserves more than this. Without really knowing what she's doing, she begins to check into a few things, and when she stumbles across something that has someone trying to scare her off, she knows she's on the trail of a killer.

I jumped at the chance to read this book, primarily because I love the idea of a mystery series set in a literary agency. The setting does pay off because I did get a feel for the way such a place works. The Novel Idea Literary Agency is filled with quite a cast of characters, too, and that should lead to many interesting books in the future.

I wasn't prepared for how much I liked the main character, Lila Wilkins. She's a genuinely nice person who's a hard-working single mother raising a  typical (thoughtless) teenage son. She's got a rather wacky and loving mother, and when Lila moves to Inspiration Valley, she even finds a couple of handsome, intelligent men that make her heart go pitty-pat. But it's Lila's heart that really made me warm to her as a character. The woman genuinely cares about people, and she goes out of her way to see the good in everyone. I love Lila's empathy, and I find it refreshing after reading about so many characters who have jaded, sarcastic tones of voice.

Although I immediately knew the identity of the book thief, it didn't put me off reading this book. Sometimes the only thing a mystery has going for it is the element of surprise. Take that away, and there's nothing left to hold your interest. This is certainly not the case with Buried in a Book. There's much more to the plot than deducing the identity of a thief and/or murderer, and the cast of characters is so engaging that I definitely want to read many more books about them.

Buried in a Book at Amazon.

Buried in a Book at The Book Depository.

Buried in a Book at Your Favorite Indie Bookseller.