Janet Marsh travels to Scotland with three other friends to run a local book shop after her marriage breaks up. Janet, a frequent visitor to the town of Inversgail, finds that she can't move into her house right away and things aren't going perfectly in the bookshop transition.

When the local advice columnist is found murdered in the garden at Janet's house, the new bookshop owners become amateur detectives.

I'm not a huge reader of cozy mysteries but I enjoyed this one and can't wait to read the next book in this series. I loved how the women came together to solve the crime.

A nice start to a new series! Fans of cozies set in bookstores will relish this one, as will those who enjoy light crime novels set in Scotland. Thanks for the ARC.

This was just an OK cozy mystery read for me. The book had way too many characters and subplots. I had a hard time staying interested in the mystery and the book. There was a lot of repetition. The mystery was easy to solve. I really enjoy the author's other series but this book just dragged along. This was a disappointing read.

I just could not get into the story line of this book, it was disappointing.. I don't like to give bad reviews and some other people may enjoy it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read and review.

Four women from the United States decide to retire to the village of Inversgail, Scotland, just weeks before the annual Literary Festival. When a body is found on the property of one of the women and the local police are reticent to discuss the case, the women decide to investigate in their own leisurely way while still managing their bookstore and planning for their soon-to-open tea room and bed and breakfast. This first in a new cozy mystery series is part of the trend toward all things Scottish. While the pace is slow, the characters are likeable and the setting is charming.

n the first novel of The Highland Bookshop Mystery Series, Plaid and Plagiarism readers meet the new owners of the Yon Bonnie Bookshop in Scotland. The four women, Janet Marsh, her daughter, Tallie Marsh, Janet’s best friend, Christine Robertson, and Summer Jacobs, Tallie’s college roommate, all come with different strengths which they think will allow them to run the quaint bookshop smoothly. Once they arrive (from Illinois), however, Janet finds that her house has been vandalized and she can’t move in, and then finds the body of an unlikeable and obnoxious investigative reporter, Una Graham, in the shed behind her house with a sickle in her neck. Of course there are several suspects, and as the story moves along, readers will look at each suspect thinking they have surely solved the case. However, the real murderer isn’t found out until the end; the unexpected suspect makes a nice ending to the book.

MacRae’s writing is good, concise, and easy to follow, and since this is a cozy, there is no graphic violence, sex, or profanity. The setting is enchanting, and MacRae writes so that readers will feel that they have actually visited this little Scottish town.

There are a few drawbacks to this series, however. While the characters are charming, it may be difficult for readers to relate – they are too charming and too transparent; most of the characters are quite likeable, but just too perfect to be real. The storyline is good, too, but it seems like it is too much of a “feel good” mystery and there is very little suspense. It is expected that the four women are just amateur detectives, and they don’t do much investigating, but it would be better if they had a few skills and didn’t act brainless in some situations.

The book is fun and fast-moving. Often the first book in a series is not as good as the subsequent ones, and that may be the case here, where the author is introducing the main characters, the bookshop, and the quaint town, and the emphasis is on preparing the readers for more suspenseful scenarios.

Plaid and Plagiarism is certainly suitable for all ages, and can be read in a few hours. It is a light cozy, and there is nothing objectionable in the novel. While there are lots of cozy series out there, this does capture the charm of a small village in Scotland, and that almost makes up for the lack of suspense. Most readers will look forward to the next installment to see if there is enough suspense to warrant reading the entire series to come.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

Plaid and Plagiarism is a cozy mystery set in Inversgail, Scotland. It's centered around a group of four women who have decided to partner up and run a bookshop, tearoom, and bed and breakfast (though only the bookshop is running in this book). They're thrust into the middle of a murder investigation and decide to try a little sleuthing of their own to get to the bottom of whodunnit.

Like most cozy mysteries, the pacing was a little slower than I'd hoped, though once I got involved in the story a bit more, I was definitely interested in seeing where it headed. I loved the idea of setting the book in Scotland and I found myself wishing we saw more of it. Instead, most of the time we were reading about the women inside a pub or their shop, which made sense in some ways, but I was left wondering why the author bothered to set the book in Scotland if most of the plot takes place in a bookshop that could have been anywhere. Still, I enjoyed the concept of the bookshop and tearoom, and I'm now dying for some scones after many, many mentions of them in the book.

Regarding the murder and mystery itself, I thought it was fairly well done. I didn't guess who the killer was and I jumped to some of my own conclusions like any good amateur sleuth would, even though I didn't have all of the information. I felt a little like one of the characters (a bit misguided, but pretty convinced I was on the right track). I did wish there were more little clues that let me come to my own conclusions (the right conclusions), but I enjoyed the way things worked out.

I'm giving this three stars rather than four because while I did enjoy reading it, I found the beginning to be a little slow, and as I mentioned above, I'd really like to see more of Scotland. Even more description about the setting outside of the shop might be nice, but that's a personal preference. It's a good cozy mystery and if you enjoy the genre, I'd give it a try.