Bleeding Heart Librarian by Jackie Layton Review and Giveaway

About the Book

Title: Bleeding Heart Librarian
Series: A Texas Flower Farmer Cozy Mystery #3
Author: Jackie Layton
Publisher: Level Best Books
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Genre: Cozy Mystery

Emma Justice is friends with the local librarian and brings her extra flowers once a week. On a hot July morning, when people are gathered outside the closed library past opening time, Emma calls the police. The librarian’s body is found in the building and beside the body is a pink and white bleeding heart plant.

Tess Carranza was a lovely person dedicated to children and patrons of the library in Lutz, Texas. Tess recently confided to Emma about her fear someone was using the library to gather information to commit crimes. Emma didn’t get the entire story from Tess before her death, but now she’s determined to stop the crime and catch Tess’s killer.

PURCHASE LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

More In This Series

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About the Author

Jackie Layton is the author of cozy mysteries with Spunky Southern Sleuths. Her stories are set in Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina. She lives on the coast of South Carolina, where she enjoys walks on the beach and golf cart rides around the marsh. Reading, gardening, and traveling are some of her favorite hobbies. Jackie always keeps a notebook handy to write down ideas for future stories. Many of her ideas come from people watching and watching Dateline and American Greed.

Connect with Jackie by visiting jackielaytoncozyauthor.com to follow her on social media and subscribe to email newsletter updates.

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My Impressions

“I don’t want you to get involved in my murder investigation. For your safety, as well as my sanity.”

 

Whenever you read these words, you can bet you’re reading a cozy mystery, and an amateur sleuth is getting in the way of the police investigation. And of course, the amateur sleuth lets the words in one ear and out the other. 

This was my first book by Jackie Layton. While Bleeding Heart Librarian is third in the series, Texas Flower Farmer Cozy Mystery, I had no difficulty sorting characters or understanding the action. 

I enjoyed the story of single mom Emma whose daughter, Abby, is a college freshman home for the summer. Emma is finally realizing her dream of having a flower farm and figuring out how to make it profitable. At a Fourth of July party, the local librarian, Tess, is very concerned about a friend’s aunt. Before Tess can relay her concerns to the woman and Emma, Tess is found pulseless on the library floor by the planter. 

And so begins the race of the first -person narrator, Emma, to find Tessa’s killer before the police, who, frankly, aren’t working at the case half as hard as she. Emma’s relationship with her friends is often stretched to the limit as she questions everybody that may have seen anything. Somehow, in cozies, people don’t usually lose too many friends over these impromptu inquisitions, but I was glad to see Emma realize that this isn’t a great way to maintain any valuable friendships! 

I enjoyed seeing relationships progress, like Emma’s and Jake’s, Emma’s and Abby’s, and Emma’s with Zig and Faith. Some other relationship arcs surprised me.

One  surprising emphasis that stood out to me was the author’s description of a couple of characters as “Black” people. While I would agree if you’re looking for a suspect, one needs to know the color of skin, ie, White, African-American or Black, Hispanic, etc, no other characters were identified by skin color first. I believe, in this case, there could have at least been more subtle ways to suggest this, but why not mention other skin tones too (olive- hued, for one). Let me be clear: nothing negative was said about such persons of Color. I think this may be the author’s attempt at showing some racial harmony (you’ll have to read the book!) Anywho, just something that struck me. 

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I will add this series to one I want to go back and pick up my missing two previous books and follow with any sequels. A clean read, meets cozy guidelines, with a few twists! 

I received a copy of the book from JustReads. I also bought my own copy. No positive review was required, and all opinions are my own. 

My Rating

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Great! A new-to-me author, this looks like a series I’d like to follow. Hopefully, readers will enjoy sleuthing with Emma and friends in the Texas town of Lutz, too!

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Tour Giveaway

(1) winner will receive a Texas-and-flower themed prize bundle which includes an ebook of Bleeding Heart Librarian, a $5 Starbucks card, lip balm and holder, a blue and white bag, a fabric coaster, a designer Wet-It swedish cleaning cloth, a journal, a car coaster and an alarm key chain!

Full tour schedule linked below. The giveaway begins at midnight May 19, 2025 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on May 26, 2025. Winners will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.

Giveaway is subject to JustRead Publicity Tours Giveaway Policies.

Enter Giveaway

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