A DARK AND STORMY MURDER is Book 1 in Julia Buckley's "Writer's Apprentice" mystery series. I love Gothic mysteries, and A DARK AND STORMY MURDER has a great combination of cozy and Gothic elements. Lena London gets the opportunity that readers dream about -- to work and live with a favorite author. Camilla Graham is an acclaimed writer of Gothic mysteries, but as she's gotten older she finds she needs a collaborator and someone as a sounding board to help spark new ideas. Not long after Lena arrives at Camilla's, she finds herself in a situation that could be the plot of one of Camilla's mysteries.

The small town of Blue Lake, Indiana is beautiful, quaint, and has the added attraction for Lena of also being the home of her best friend Allison. In spite of having all these attractive qualities, I like the way Julia Buckley frames the town and the characters in such a way as to show unsettling hidden depths beneath the placid surfaces. A DARK AND STORMY MURDER is reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel in the way that nobody is above suspicion, and you can't help but start to see a possible sinister side to all the seemingly harmless townsfolk you meet. Julia Buckley's descriptions help the reader visualize the settings, like Camilla's beautiful and mysterious stately home, as if you're watching a movie. I like Lena as a main character and unexpected sleuth. Lena falls into the role of investigator in a very organic way when she discovers a body. Julia Buckley does a wonderful job of integrating some humor and a dash of romance into a story full of danger.

A DARK AND STORMY MURDER is a riveting mystery that will appeal to both cozy and suspense fans. I enjoyed having two mysteries to try and puzzle out in A DARK AND STORMY MURDER -- the murder, and also the strange disappearance of Sam West's estranged wife. I normally don't enjoy love triangles, but the one in A DARK AND STORMY MURDER doesn't distract from the mystery. I look forward to reading the next Writer's Apprentice mystery to see what's in store for the main characters, and what intriguing mystery Julia Buckley can devise next.

Book Summary

An aspiring suspense novelist lands in the middle of a real crime, in the first in a captivating new series by the author of the Undercover Dish Mysteries.

Lena London's literary dreams are coming true—as long as she can avoid any real-life villains...

Camilla Graham’s bestselling suspense novels inspired Lena London to become a writer, so when she lands a job as Camilla’s new assistant, she can’t believe her luck. Not only will she help her idol craft an enchanting new mystery, she’ll get to live rent-free in Camilla’s gorgeous Victorian home in the quaint town of Blue Lake, Indiana.

But Lena’s fortune soon changes for the worse. First, she lands in the center of small town gossip for befriending the local recluse. Then, she stumbles across one thing that a Camilla Graham novel is never without—a dead body, found on her new boss’s lakefront property.

Now Lena must take a page out of one of Camilla’s books to hunt down clues in a real crime that seems to be connected to the novelist’s mysterious estate—before the killer writes them both out of the story for good...