Title: Quiet Neighbors
Author: Catriona McPherson
Publication: 8 April 2016 - Midnight Ink
First Line: It was the last thing on her mind when she fled across London. She had her passport and meant to take a train to the airport then buy a ticket for the farthest place on the departure board, to put time zones and maybe the date line between them.
Favorite Line: Suddenly she was living in an Anne Taylor novel. A world where you can set down one life, walk away, and pick up another. It was almost too easy. (p 31)
Ramble: I've been a fan of Catriona McPherson's since I first stumbled upon her Dandy Gilver mystery series. When I saw she had a non-Dandy title on NetGalley I was ecstatic. When I received the notification that Midnight Ink had approved my request I even squealed a little.
I miss Dandy.
It's listed as a mystery but even at the half-way point I was finding the main mystery to simply be "what the heck is the big mystery?!?" And, more to the point, "do I really care?!?" I even read through the reviews on Goodreads and the description on Amazon to see if either would give me a clue.
It's the oldest bookshop in a town full of bookshops; rambling and disordered, full of treasures if you look hard. Jude found one of the treasures when she visited last summer, the high point of a miserable vacation. Now, in the depths of winter, when she has to run away, Lowell's chaotic bookshop in that backwater of a town is the safe place she runs to.
Jude needs a bolt-hole; Lowell needs an assistant and, when an affordable rental is thrown in too, life begins to look up. The gravedigger's cottage isn't perfect for a woman alone but at least she has quiet neighbors.
Quiet, but not silent. The long dead and the books they left behind both have tales to tell and the dusty rooms of the bookshop are not the haven they seem to be. Lowell's past and Jude's present are a dangerous cocktail of secrets and lies and someone is coming to light the taper that could destroy everything.
I assumed that the mystery was still yet to come so I kept reading. After all, there was laundry to fold at work (the joys of third shifting at a hotel) and I could multitask reading and folding. Besides, I found Lowell endearing and his not-so-quiet nosy neighbor, Mrs. Hewston, amusing.
I did start to care a bit more about the secrets (I guess, the "mysteries") of the past that were popping up, but it never quite became what I was expecting when I hit the request button. I'm not sorry that I did, though. It had some delightful moments even though some bits felt horribly disjointed and I felt as though I had somehow missed reading entire paragraphs or pages. I'm pretty sure that my sister-in-law would love it, though, and if I can get her hooked on McPherson with this then maybe she'd be willing to give Dandy a try and maybe we'd have something else to gab about at family get-togethers.
