Mostly Murders

Ad/PR/Patrocinado. For this week’s Stacking The Shelves hosted by Reading Reality I’m sharing some ARCs and books I’ve received from the authors and plan on reading and reviewing in the coming weeks and months.

The Bristol Scholar by Kate Somers

Published Sep 30, 2025

From Goodreads: 1884. Bristol, England.

Twenty-year-old Evangeline Moore has endured three tedious seasons in London at her family’s behest. Bold, intelligent, and aspirational, Evangeline wants nothing to do with husband-hunting. So, finally granted freedom to choose her future, she seizes the opportunity to attend University College, Bristol.

But life in academia isn’t everything Evangeline had dreamed. She suffers segregation and mockery—none worse than from her enigmatic history professor. Brooding and strict, he awakens an inconvenient attraction that Evangeline struggles to quell.

Potion Sickness by Cleo Frost

Publication day Aug 31, 2026

From Goodreads: Mari Wardwell came back home to Duskboro, just for the summer… at least that’s what she keeps telling herself. Now summer is winding down and she has a freelance gig, a growing soft spot for the local funeral director, and a talking cat who just appointed himself head dramaturg of the Duskboro Players’ inaugural production of Macbeth.

What could go wrong? It’s not like the play is famously cursed or anything. When Damien Carter – Broadway veteran and daytime TV legend – collapses mid-rehearsal into a sleep no doctor can explain, of course everyone thinks of the curse.

Mari knows better. Someone is to blame. With whispers of backstage romance, an understudy hungry for the spotlight, and a director whose marriage just hit the tabloids, the suspect list is longer than the second act.

Alongside a sharp-nosed apothecary witch, a larcenous raccoon, and an eight-year-old investigator with a very thorough evidence log, Mari must unmask a poisoner, save a sold-out opening night, and keep her cat off the stage – because he knows every line of the Scottish play, and he is ready for his close-up.

Places, everyone – something wicked this way comes.

The Belgravia Phantom by Ellis Blackwood

Published Jul 31, 2026

From Goodreads: How do you prove you didn’t scare Lady Pemberton to death with a phantom?

Such is Kate Quill’s quandary. The faked séance went horribly wrong, and now Inspector Hartwell of Scotland Yard has her in his sights.
Kate’s poor. Seamstress poor. But what she lacks in the pocket, she makes up for in allies.

There are her siblings. Daisy, the actress. Ned and Vi… There’s no way around this – they’re petty thieves.

There’s Mrs McGinty, their formidable Irish landlady. There are Vi’s Whitechapel Worthies, Little Till (adorable) and the Twins (quite odd).
And there is Frederick Page, former gentleman’s gentleman, chess aficionado, lover of puzzles, and now reluctant partner in an unlikely Victorian detective duo. Please, do not refer to him as Freddie, or he’ll be grasping for the smelling salts.

Can this glorious rabble somehow band together to investigate all those lofty lords and ladies who attended the séance?
And discover who really murdered Lady Dorothea Pemberton?

The Unbegotten by Sarah Blanchard

Publication day Oct 3, 2026

From sarahpblanchard.com: The cleaning crew never touches a drop of liquor. Susannah’s about to learn why.

She’s twenty-two, eight weeks pregnant, and still on shift when the storm rolls through Vermont’s Green Mountains, rattling the windows of an old barn, a wedding venue that’s hosted worse things than bad marriages. Midnight comes and so does the cleaning crew: pale, quiet, dressed for a different century.

They’re not here just to clean up the mess. They’re here for what Susannah’s carrying, something they lost a long time ago. And they’ve crossed a long, dark road to take it back.

She’s got a half-empty bar, two friends who won’t leave her to face this alone, and whatever is still within arm’s reach behind the counter. Out here, that might be the only kind of help that comes in time.

The Unbegotten is a gothic-toned, supernatural horror story for readers who seek out tragic monsters, rural scares, and a heroine who’s outmatched but not out of options.

The Fish and Chip Shop Detectives and a Mystery at Sea

Publication day Sep 3, 2026

From NetGalley: In the picturesque Cornish seaside village of Mousehole, Maggie and Ryan are busy running Robbins’ Fish and Chip Shop. They love nothing more than a cup of tea, a nice slice of cake… and solving a murder mystery.

But Maggie and Ryan weren’t expecting to find a dead body in the castle on St Michael’s Mount, a famous island known for its causeway that disappears under water at high tide.

Already searching for a local youth, Mitch, who’s been missing for three weeks, Maggie and Ryan fear the worst. Then when a fishing boat is stolen, the detectives begin to suspect that all three mysterious events are somehow connected…

Has Mitch found himself in at the deep end? And can the amateur sleuths solve their latest case before the truth is left out at sea?

A Wedding Date with Death by Maeve Haran

Publication day Sep 30, 2026

From bookouture.com: Something old, something new, something borrowed… someone dead?!

When Sadie Sutton swapped four walls for the four wheels of her trusty orange VW campervan, she didn’t realise that it would come with a new career as a super sleuth! But when a wedding at local beauty spot Winching Priory Hotel is halted because the father of the groom has been found fatally poisoned, Sadie drops everything to take on her next case!

As the wedding grinds to a halt, Sadie soon learns that the victim, gifted local artist Benedict Lawrence, also had a talent for making enemies, from the snooty hotel owners to his long-suffering ex-wife. With an ever-growing list of possible suspects, Sadie is stumped. Until she finds a crumpled, threatening note sent to Benedict hours before he died.

The note leads Sadie deep into Benedict’s past, to a secret love affair, a bitter feud and a long-buried grudge. And when she finds a faded newspaper article about him and his artist friends in their youth, she’s stunned at who else she recognises in the photo…

With secrets and lies at every turn, Sadie knows no guests are safe. Can she crack the case before the nearly wed become newly dead?

Sixty Is The New Assassin by Shesh

Published Nov 17, 2024

From Goodreads: After retiring from active corporate life, sixty-year-old Ishmael Dollah keeps himself busy with regular runs around the city, tennis at the club and his book club meets. Life is good—a bit staid maybe, but good. That is until, one day, he hears of his beloved daughter-in-law’s rumoured affair. Suddenly Ishmael’s perfect world is turned upside down.

Never one to give in, Ishmael decides to take matters into his own hands. He’ll apply his sharp mind and ruthless boardroom tactics to plan not a hostile takeover, but a carefully orchestrated act of vengeance.

As he treads the fine line between right and wrong, blurring it to suit his needs, Ishmael realises he rather enjoys the process. Sixty Is the New Assassin is an intriguing blend of dark humour and suspense that will keep the reader hooked up to the very end.

In October by Charlotte Josephine

Publication day Oct 27, 2026

On the 27th October 2014 a boy was shot and a girl drowned.

In a desperate search for his forgotten past, John “Jay” Doe annually revisits the river he was dredged from, searching for the figure of his recurring nightmares: a girl with ebony-black hair and emerald-green eyes, drowning in the river beside him.

However, when he returns four years later, Jay finds an Eldritch horror who looks nothing like the girl he remembers… and she claims to have shot him in the head.

What books did you add to your shelves this week?

Stacking The Shelves