Stakes, Cakes and Mandrakes (Three Tomes Bookshop Book 3) by Coleen Gleason - A Spoiler Free ARC Review

Check out my ARC review for the upcoming Stakes, Cakes, and Mandrakes by Colleen Gleason. Available for pre-order now (releasing on February 7th). Plus the first two are available to read now with your Kindle Unlimited membership. Don't have one? Click HERE to try it free for 30 days!

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Blurb About The Book
Jacqueline Finch and her mystical, magical bookshop is back in this third entry of the bestselling Three Tomes Bookshop series!
Spring is in full swing in lakefront Button Cove, and Jacqueline is embracing her new life—her friends, her new home, the crones down the street, and especially the detective with a hot-Viking vibe. It’s not half bad, considering the fact that she has the bickering literary characters of Mrs. Hudson (Sherlock’s landlady) and the dour, creepy housekeeper Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca “helping” her to run the bookshop, and her nemesis Egala Stone is opening her own store down the block.

And then there’s the handsome new undertaker—er, mortician—who’s taken over the town funeral parlor and who has all the women ga-ga over him—including Jacqueline’s friends. Things get a little weird when Detective Massermey’s daughter seeks out help from Jacqueline, but surely she can handle that…right?

But when an old book falls off the shelf, signaling the arrival of yet another literary character Jacqueline has to deal with, and strange accidents and thefts begin to happen in Button Cove, Jacqueline once again finds herself in a big, fat mess.


Now For The Review

Standalone or series? 
Book 3 in the series - and yes you really do need to read the other two before this one in my opinion to understand what's going on. 

How did I get this book?
I've reviewed a lot for Colleen in the past so she very kindly offered me a copy.

Why did I choose to read this book:  
I'm a big fan of Collen's work and this series in particular.

Genre
Paranormal Women's Fiction.

And Now To The Review!

First Impressions:
These books are set in a magical bookstore, wherein WE know it's magical, there are literal fictional characters that have come out of books that work there, and it was fun to see that "Dracula" had fallen off the shelves in this case so I knew vampires were on the horizon.
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General Review
 This book started off in the generally good category but by the middle and end had moved up to OMG this author is a genius level. (Which as you know from me is extremely high priase).  If you watched the TV show Supernatural, there is an episode called the French Mistake which is generally accepted as one of the more meta episodes out there. For me this book is like that, BUT FOR BOOK FANS!  There are always a good number of other literary mentions in this series, I mean it is set in a book store after all, but this time Colleen has gone above and beyond and it's so out the box, BUT I can't tell you what without giving it away.

Final Thoughts
Literally a genius idea! I did solve "who is the vampire" part pretty early on, but all the meta stuff more than made up for that. If you like PWF, especially if you have read the other two, this is by far the strongest of the series. 

Rating:
5 Stars!

As always let me know what you think in the comments!

Pineapple Code word for this article is Dracula


** Disclosure** 
​Any Links To Buy On Amazon Is My Amazon Affiliate Link.​(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases - Which helps provide for the giveaways!)