Publishable by Death

by A C F Bookens

  Marcus Dawson slowly lowers his book, and as I step around in front of him, he smiles up at me. “It’s amazing,” he says. “But no spoilers. You have to read it yourself.”

  “Will do.” I kicked his shin playfully. “You know, you don’t have to be here when you’re not working.”

  He shrugs. “What can I say? When you find a good thing . . . “

  Marcus had started working here about a month ago, and he was amazing at his job. Thoughtful with his recommendations, and voracious in his reading. At first I’d hired him to help him out, but it turned out that he was a major draw for returning customers who found his book suggestions to be so fitting for them that they came in again and again. Now, he had a regular column in our weekly newsletter, where he did book matchmaking with customers who filled out a short survey as they stopped by. I’d gotten the idea from one of my favorite podcasts What Should I Read Next?, and people were loving it. Our box of completed surveys was so full that we were talking about doing Instagram videos to accommodate more customer requests. I had definitely gotten the better end of the deal when I’d hired Marcus. And on Monday, he would begin his first shift as assistant manager. I noticed he’d had his hair cut into a shorter version of his typical box fade and wondered again if all the things from my teenage years were coming back. I couldn’t help but think of Kid N Play, but I didn’t make the mistake of mentioning them again since Marcus had looked at me like I was approximately 800 years old the one time I’d brought them up.

  I’d given him the weekend off so that he could relax, spend time with his mom, and maybe even do something fun in Annapolis or Baltimore, but I wasn’t all that surprised to see him in the store. He really did seem to love St. Marin’s and my bookshop, and I knew that living in his apartment above Daniel’s garage was probably kind of lonely, especially when Daniel wasn’t there.

  “Well, happy reading. But no working today. Not even Insta photos. It’s your day off. I don’t want to pay you, but I’ll be forced to if you work, you hear me?” I gave his leg another nudge and headed off to help Daniel, who was bringing up two boxes of books for the new window display.

  Max Davies, the owner of Chez Cuisine, had taken a while to grow on me, but it turned out that he had great taste in cookbooks. So I’d promised him we’d do a new display with some titles he’d recommended. It had taken a bit of coaxing for me to convince him that we needed not only true cookbooks but also some other titles – like Ruth Reichl’s Save Me The Plums – to round out the display. But his list of recommendations turned out to be stellar and diverse, and I was eager to get the books into the window for the afternoon.

  Daniel hefted the boxes onto the display platform and gave me a quick hug before heading over to his garage. For the past couple of weeks, he’d spent the first couple of hours of Saturday morning here at the shop helping me with displays and shelving. He wasn’t much of a reader, but he was all in for supporting the shop. But he had car repairs to manage on Saturday afternoons, so I focused on my display and looked forward to seeing him later.

  I had just put the final book – Eat This Poem by Nicole Gulotta – into the display when David pulled up. Mart and I helped him unload his car, and then he and I headed out for lunch at the new BBQ place that had just opened up at the end of Main Street. I was a sucker for a place with a cute name, so Piggle and Shake had won me over as soon as the sign went up.

  The author and I had a lovely lunch, and I was thrilled to hear that he had more books coming in his renovation series. I knew his military thrillers were good, too, but I was much more a mystery girl myself.

  I pointed him in the direction of the coop and gave him the address for the maritime museum before heading back to the shop for the afternoon. St. Marin’s wasn’t San Francisco in terms of entertainment, but in some ways, it was even better. At least here, everything was within easy walking distance of everything else. Plus, since I knew Cate would take good care of David at the coop and then Lucas would do the same at the museum, I didn’t worry that he might get bored or frustrated. They’d agreed to give him the behind-the-scenes tour and have him back to the shop by 5 so we could all get dinner before the reading.

  On my way back, I needed to stop by Elle Heron’s farm stand to pick up some fresh flowers for the café tables and a bouquet for the signing table, too. Elle had been supplying fresh flowers – all grown at her small farm outside of town – since we opened, and this time, she was giving us some of the most amazing tulips I’d ever seen. The bright reds and yellows and purples would add just the right color to the store, and I couldn’t wait to see what she’d put together for the main arrangement.

  I shed my sweater as I walked the two blocks up to her shop – No Label; Just Farm To Table - and took a swig from my water bottle before I walked into her shop. The day had grown quite warm, and I had broken my first sweat of the year, which was cause for a small celebration that I’d begun a decade ago in my first “summer” on the west side of San Francisco. There, the warm days come in mid-fall, when the fog burned off completely and the temperature climbed into the high 70s, maybe even low 80s. On each of those days, I walked to the corner market and got an ice cream from the chest freezer by the front door. Always the same thing every day until the fog returned.

  Now, I was going to keep up that tradition with a slight modification. After all, I couldn’t each ice cream every day it go to 80 here. Now, I wouldn’t have minded eating ice cream every day from April to September, but I figured my cholesterol might mind. So just the first day, I decided. A celebration of the warmth returning.

  “Hey Elle.” I shouted as I walked toward the cooler, hopeful that she was as down-to-earth in her ice cream selection as she was about everything else. I wanted my plain, classic ice cream sandwich something fierce, and I was not disappointed.

  I slid open the top of the freezer, and as I leaned down to get my sandwich, something caught my eye. I stood up and took a step back.

  Then I dropped my ice cream on the floor as I backed into a shelf of broccoli and cabbage seedlings and sent potting soil and tiny plants flying.

  Beside the cooler lay the body of Hucklebee Harris, his muck boots covered in mud and his face as white the vanilla ice cream now leaking out of the wrapper at my feet.

  Coming January 2020

  Pre-Order Entitled To Kill, Book 2 in the St. Marin’s Cozy Mystery Series here - https://books2read.com/entitledtokill

  Harvey and Marcus’s Book Recommendations

  Here, you will find all the books and authors recommended in Publishable By Death to add to your never-ending to-read-list!

  Possession by A. S. Byatt

  The House that Went Down with the Ship by David Healey

  Harriet Tubman: The Road To Freedom by Catherine Clinton

  The Quiltmaker’s Gift by Jeff Brumbeau

  Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton

  The Fire This Time by Jesmyn Ward

  Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

  Supernatural Reform School by Sullivan Gray & E.C. Farrell

  Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

  The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

  The Negro Motorist’s Green Book by Victor H. Green

  Becoming by Michelle Obama

  Shot in the Heart by Mykal Gilmore

  Native Son by Richard Wright

  Ghost Swamp Blues by Laraine Herring

  Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

  Paradise by Toni Morrison

  The Warmth Of Other Suns by Isabella Wilkerson

  The Black Book by Robert Mapplethorpe

  The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfield

  Piece by Piece by Millie Jordan

  Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor

  Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman

  Still Life by Louise Penny

  The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

 
; Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

  The Long Quiche Goodbye by Avery Aames

  Riding Shotgun by Rita Mae Brown

  I have personally read each of these titles and recommend them highly. Feel free to drop me a line at acfbookens@andilit.com and let me know if you read any or have books you think I should read. Thanks!

  Happy Reading,

  ACF

  Want to Read about Harvey’s First Sleuthing Expedition?

  Join my Cozy Up email group for weekly book recs & a FREE copy of A Novel Crime, the prequel to the St. Marin’s Cozy Mystery Series.

  Sign-up here - https://bookens.andilit.com/CozyUp

  Also by ACF Bookens

  Coming January 2020

  Coming March 2020

  About the Author

  ACF Bookens lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where the mountain tops remind her that life is a rugged beauty of a beast worthy of our attention. When she’s not writing, she enjoys watching her husband and son ride the tractor, cross-stitching while she binge-watches police procedurals, and reading everything she can get her hands on. Find her at bookens.andilit.com.