Marginalia and Murder
(2026)(The first book in the Kinsley Sheldon Cozy Mystery series)
A Story by Cathlyn Sweets
When the margins tell a darker story than the text...
For forensic bibliophile Kinsley Sheldon, a book’s history is more telling than a police report. The way a person cracks a spine or dog-ears a page reveals their secrets, and in the quiet Vermont town of Willowridge, secrets are currency.
Kinsley prefers the company of first editions to people, but her "quiet life" is upended when she discovers a vintage copy of The Great Gatsby with a desperate diary scrawled in its margins. The ink tells a chilling story: Lily Thorne, a girl who supposedly ran away years ago, didn't just leave town—she vanished into a page of history.
Her theories are dismissed by the stoic, by-the-book Detective Montana, who trusts DNA, not a book-lover's intuition. But Kinsley, who internally categorizes every suspect by literary genre, knows a thriller villain when she sees one. Aided by her grumpy, quote-spouting parrot, Gutenberg, and an encyclopedic shop assistant, Kinsley deciphers clues hidden in faded ink and paper fibers.
As she gets closer to the truth, a brick through her beloved bookstore window sends a clear message: some stories are deadly. She must read between the lines of her town’s perfectly curated narrative to solve a murder before the killer writes her out of the story for good.
Armed with UV lights, chemical analysis, and her uncanny ability to "type" people by how they handle books, she's determined to read between the lines—even if it means confronting the most dangerous page-turner in town.
In a world where everyone judges a book by its cover, Kinsley reads the margins.
Because sometimes the truth isn't in the story—it's in what someone desperately tried to hide.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
For forensic bibliophile Kinsley Sheldon, a book’s history is more telling than a police report. The way a person cracks a spine or dog-ears a page reveals their secrets, and in the quiet Vermont town of Willowridge, secrets are currency.
Kinsley prefers the company of first editions to people, but her "quiet life" is upended when she discovers a vintage copy of The Great Gatsby with a desperate diary scrawled in its margins. The ink tells a chilling story: Lily Thorne, a girl who supposedly ran away years ago, didn't just leave town—she vanished into a page of history.
Her theories are dismissed by the stoic, by-the-book Detective Montana, who trusts DNA, not a book-lover's intuition. But Kinsley, who internally categorizes every suspect by literary genre, knows a thriller villain when she sees one. Aided by her grumpy, quote-spouting parrot, Gutenberg, and an encyclopedic shop assistant, Kinsley deciphers clues hidden in faded ink and paper fibers.
As she gets closer to the truth, a brick through her beloved bookstore window sends a clear message: some stories are deadly. She must read between the lines of her town’s perfectly curated narrative to solve a murder before the killer writes her out of the story for good.
Armed with UV lights, chemical analysis, and her uncanny ability to "type" people by how they handle books, she's determined to read between the lines—even if it means confronting the most dangerous page-turner in town.
In a world where everyone judges a book by its cover, Kinsley reads the margins.
Because sometimes the truth isn't in the story—it's in what someone desperately tried to hide.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Used availability for Cathlyn Sweets's Marginalia and Murder