Welcome to Read This Book, a newsletter where I recommend one book that should absolutely be put at the top of your TBR pile. Recommended books will vary across genre and age category and include shiny new books, older books you may have missed, and some classics I suggest finally getting around to.
Before we get to today’s pick, I’m excited to share that Book Riot’s editorial team is writing for casual and power readers alike over at The Deep Dive! During the month of September, all new free subscribers will be entered to win Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, plus five mystery books from The Deep Dive. To enter, simply start a free subscription to The Deep Dive. No payment method required!
Today’s pick is the first in a series of quozy (queer + cozy) mysteries by a fellow Rioter.
Board to Death (A Board Game Shop Mystery) by CJ Connor
We begin on Ben Rosencrantz’s 30th birthday. Ben was an English professor in the Pacific Northwest, and he recently divorced his husband and moved back to the Salt Lake City area. He now helps run his father’s board game shop as well as takes care of his father, who is having some health issues. Ben’s heart is really tender from having to leave a teaching job he loved, from the divorce, from his father’s deteriorating health, and also not expecting to be moving back in with his father at age 30.
The board game shop is named Of Dice and Decks, and it’s in a small, tight-knit community of shops in the Sugar House neighborhood, the kind of neighborhood where everyone knows each other and some of the elders have been around since Ben was a kid. Ben doesn’t mind this, and while it’s not ideal, he still loves the community he grew up in, and there is a certain amount of comfort he gets from being around people he has known his whole life. Of Dice and Decks is not doing well financially. Ben’s father added a bit of a coffee shop element to it, and folks do come in for their caffeine, and that may be the main thing keeping the shop afloat.
Ben is at Of Dice and Decks when an incredibly shady guy named Clive comes in. Ben doesn’t know him personally, but he does know that Clive is always trying to sell some kind of knockoff or something to his father (who turns him away every time). As you can imagine, Clive gives off really bad vibes. He goes into the shop, telling Ben that he has something to offer him that Ben is not going to want to turn down. He finally verbally wears Ben down, and Ben takes him to the office to hear what Clive has to say before throwing him out. Clive claims to have an original copy of The Landlord’s Game, which is a game that actually existed, and that Monopoly basically stole its idea from. Copies of The Landlord’s Game go for a lot of money, and Clive is trying to offload this game fast. Ben turns him away, and late that night, Ezra, the florist from next door (and possible love interest?), and Ben are alone in the game shop when there’s a knock at the door. It’s Clive, with a knife stuck in his chest.
This quozy mystery was a ton of fun, and I’m excited for the series to continue.
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That’s it for now, book lovers!
Patricia
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