Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Review: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

Lydia Smith loves working at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. She can talk books all day and spend time with the BookFrogs, a group of misfits who wander the aisles and find a sort of home there. But one night, she makes the terrible discovery that Joey has committed suicide in the bookstore. Lydia learns that he left her everything he owned, including a puzzle hidden inside his books. The messages he left encourage her to revisit the darkest moments of her childhood that she has spent a lifetime trying to forget. Did Joey know who was behind the crime that terrorized a community and destroyed Lydia's family?

Readers love books that are about bookstores and fellow readers. But this is not your grandma's cozy mystery about a bookseller who solves crimes in a small town when she's not knitting sweaters for her cat. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is dark and a bit creepy and delves deeply into the consequences of suppressing the difficult things in our lives. It's also about the relationships we have and the ones we choose, and about knowing when to leave and when to give people another chance. It's about loneliness and finding the people who will accept you, even with all the scars of your past.

This book is one that seems to play before your eyes as you read. It's easy to picture Lydia shelving books at Bright Ideas Bookstore or spending an afternoon long ago with her childhood friends in the local donut shop. This is also a really well-written mystery. We know early on that the central question is about the crime committed in Lydia's childhood. But Matthew Sullivan has added so many layers that it's impossible to tell who might be responsible or why. As the reader, you are working just like Lydia is to uncover another clue about Joey or remember one pivotal moment from her past. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a great choice for book lovers who like their mysteries dark and twisty.


Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
By Matthew J. Sullivan
Scribner June 2017
336 pages
Read via Netgalley

8 comments:

  1. This one sounds really good! Gotta love a mystery that involves books and a bookstore, especially one that's a bit dark and creepy. :)

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    1. Right? Sullivan writes a good mystery and really nails the atmosphere of a bookstore.

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  2. This book sounds really familiar to me. I can't remember the name, but read another mystery set around a bookstore a few years ago. I think it took b=place in San Francisco. Sound familiar? (Love the "knitting sweaters for her cat" line!)

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    1. Nothing immediately comes to mind, but I will keep an eye out for it!

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  3. This sounds a lot like Mr. Penumbra's Bookstore, with its setting and not-so-cozy mystery. It seems like it might have a more satisfying ending though, since the secrets the main character have to discover sound like they're of a more serious nature.

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    1. I would say it's a bit darker than Penumbra and more personal, since the stakes are mostly for Lydia.

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  4. This one has been catching my eye (it's a book about books, after all), but I'm not much into dark mysteries. I won't cross it off the list, but I won't rush out and get it either. I'm glad I read your review to give me a heads up!

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  5. I have the same impression as Julie - the title of this book intrigued me, but I'm not really into mysteries. Still, it sounds like a good one for if I ever get into a mystery mood!

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