The Bookshop Below

Beneath London lies a hidden network of magical bookshops that has existed for thousands of years. They are vanishing one by one, and nobody can say why.

Cassandra Fairfax once trained at Chiron's shop, a place of powerful bargains and deadly ink magic. Chiron threw her out and let the business nearly close, and she lost everything she cared about. Since then she has made her living by selling stolen books and magical readings to rich young men and collectors with few scruples.

Then Chiron dies in suspicious circumstances. Cassandra knows the rule that every bookshop must have an owner, but she is not the only one who wants this one. Lowell Sharpe, a dark-eyed and annoyingly handsome bookseller, keeps turning up wherever she goes. Rival owners menace her from the shadows, and whoever killed Chiron is still free.

Cassandra sets out to trace the secrets her old mentor left behind, hoping to clear her name and rewrite her own story. Meanwhile a dark force moves against the whole hidden world of the shops.

This is a standalone fantasy with a murder mystery at its center, a rivalry that carries a hint of romance, and a setting built around books and the magic written into them.