So, this WILDLY exceeded my (already high) expectations!! 📖🔪

📚 'Death of a Bookseller' by Alice Slater is about two women - Laura and Roach - who both work in the same chain bookshop (sounded a bit like a Waterstones). Roach has an obsession with serial killers & Laura disagrees with 'true crime' as a literary genre, which creates tensions which escalate the longer they work together.

🚔 While this book was mainly about the complex relationship between Laura & Roach, it also explores the implications of true crime books & podcasts on real life victims & survivors. I'm quite partial to a true crime podcast & this really made me rethink how I consume this type of media. This theme added depth to the story & made this book really stand out as something a bit different.

⚡ Alice Slater absolutely NAILS the pacing in this. Not so fast that you lose out on the detail & feeling of suspense, but gripping enough that I binge-read the whole thing in a couple of days.

✍️ It's told through a dual point of view, which worked extremely well - it highlighted the contrasting motivations & attitudes of the two narrators, and I felt like I was really inside the characters' heads.

✨ Overall, a very self-aware novel with vivid characters and an interesting take on true crime as a genre - I would highly recommend getting this on your 'to be read' list for next year!

🗓️ Comes out 27th April 2023

Thanks to @netgalley for my advance reader copy!

- Katie

This title was featured in National Book Tokens' '23 books to look out for in 2023':

Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater
Roach has all the company she needs in her serial killer books, murder podcasts, and pet snail, Bleep. That is, until Laura joins the bookshop and becomes everyone's new favourite bookseller. But beneath the shiny veneer, Roach senses a darkness within Laura, the same darkness Roach possesses.

A superb thriller that becomes increasingly dark right up until the final sentence. The setting of a bookshop with frequent in-jokes and literature references took me back to my bookselling days. I don’t think any of the characters were particularly pleasant or likeable, but that didn’t dull my enjoyment despite this being a bleak and disturbing story.
I listened to the audiobook version and thought the two narrators were very well cast.
A great book recommended particularly for booksellers, which is possibly reflected in my star rating - it's hard to be unbiased.
Many thanks to the publisher for a review copy via NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this one, even if it did give me anxiety dreams.  Reading a book about working in a bookshop at Christmas when you are working in a bookshop at Christmas was quite possibly bad timing on my part.  Especially considering the similarities our bookshops had, and whilst I do not know anyone quite like Laura or Roach, they definitely had personality traits that felt familiar.  Both characters were entirely unlikeable in their own way, but I did enjoy reading from their POVs as they justified their actions and behaviours.

Despite the anxiety dreams, I would really reccomend this, it delves into some interesting topics around privacy and obsession as well as a love of books.  I also read this quite quickly, I found that once I got into it, I could not put it down.

I was expecting something quite cosy from the title but the book turned out to be lot sharper than the title suggested and all the better for it. The relationship between the two women is well drawn, the interior voices really work and as I listened to this as an audio book, I found the performances really effective

Not my usual genre of choice, but I'm a fan of Alice's podcast, so I thought I'd give anything coming out of her clever brain a go, and I was certainly not disappointed. Slater delivers a Highsmith-esque story about morbid all consumin obsession, set within the otherwise cosy confines of a dying bookshop, whose setting feels so familiar and lifelike to me. Slater also examines our complicated relation to true crime as a genre and the real stories behind it.
I thought the audiobook narration landed itself particularly well to this story, because it made sure that the two protagonists had such distinct voices and really helped you understand so quickly who each of them was based on delivery alone.
I devoured this with each chance I got and I never wanted to stop reading.

A great piece of book selling drama with some so memory jogging reminders of selling to the public. Loved the back ground and the scenery descriptions.

Death of a Bookseller is among my favourites of the year and I’m struggling to put my finger on why, except that it made me feel so seen it was uncanny. The Spines bookshop could have quite easily been the lovely, little woebegone chain store I work in. Slater nails the minutiae of a general day in the shop, as well as the things that make the job cosy and homey. This book could not have been written as well by someone who hadn’t spent years working as a bookseller.

Our main character, Roach, is absolutely terrible and as such makes a series of terrible choices, yet at every turn she felt completely real and unfortunately very relatable. It speaks to talent and empathy from the author that Roach is so utterly unhinged, but in such a believable, understandable, and even at times, sympathetic way. While you cringe endlessly at her, there is a snail trail of logic so astutely crafted that even with her snooping and her creeping and her stalking, it feels at times like Roach is the only person in the book making any sense.

Because of this. Death of a Bookseller could fit nicely on a bookshelf with other feral girl books of the same ilk but DOAB is unique in that it speaks to a distinctly British working class feral girl experience. It is that that really cements this book as a favourite. That and the ending, the seemingly neat and tidy ending… It all seems too good to be true doesn’t it… 👀 I stepped back from the book, closing the last page and I just had to sit with it for a moment. Wondering. Soaking in whatever the hell I had just read pretty much cover to cover.

Mostly though, the book is just so much bloody fun. It’s so dark and grim and shamelessly hideous. Not in a way that is meant to disturb or shock, but just in a really grotesquely human way. It’s so readable, so funny, equally slick and silly. It was just a jolly good time.

Sometimes an audiobook detracts from the reading experience but in this case, I am really glad I was able to get my greedy lil hands on an advanced listening copy. (Thank you, Hodder) 💚 The narrators here are absolutely wonderful, not only did they do their own roles to perfection, they also played the other. The narrator for Roach (I’m not sure who is who, sorry) in particular did a brilliantly snooty voice for Laura. I really loved it. They both absolutely nailed it.

I was lucky enough to receive a physical proof from Alice Slater herself when she visited our store. The audio was the perfect accompaniment. A masons thank you to Hodder, NetGalley and the author for the ALC of Death of a Bookseller. Really excited to have this one in store. Would love to do an event but I think we’ll have to fight all the other stores for first dibs 💚

As a bookseller myself, I was intrigued by this title! Set in a rundown East London branch of a large bookshop chain, there was a huge amount I recognised in the setting. If the author hasn’t previously worked in a branch of a similar big bookshop chain I’d be very surprised!

Told in dual-perspective we have two protagonists - Roach is a young woman obsessed with true crime who has been working at Spines since she was 16, and Laura is the free-spirited bookseller who is drafted in to try and help turn the shop’s fortunes around.

There were a lot of interesting aspects to this story but I found the realistic portrayal of what it’s like to work in a bookshop the thing I identified with most.

The characters were interesting but I found most of them quite unlikeable, even after learning about their back stores and motivations.

There were a few good twists, but j didn’t really enjoy the story.

Having a different narrator for each of the two protagonists made the story easier to follow and I think they were cast quite well.

If you want to learn more about what it’s like to work in a bookshop with a dark underlying story this might be the book for you.

Spines is a bookshop. Roach works at Spines. She loves true crime murder podcasts and doesn’t feel the need to make friends. Then one day a new employee starts working at Spines called Laura. Laura is cute and smells sweet of Roses. Roach likes Laura. She begins to get infatuated with Laura but Laura keeps Roach at arms length. Things get quite stalker ish. This audiobook is dark and twisted, it’s full of dark humour and funny and you can’t stop listening. There are some great descriptions and some laugh out loud moments. Narrated by Emma Noaleer and Victoria Blunt this is a book to give you some dark entertainment. Thank you Hodder and Stoughton and Netgalley for my copy.