Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Imaginative and sad. Great characters, convincing story, two mysteries, a recent and a cold case connected by multiple threads. It’s very difficult to pull off a good mystery and a strong family drama that still is light enough to enjoy reading. I read it in one day, couldn’t put it down.
Main character, Lydia, works at a bookstore that allows “BookFrogs” –homeless readers –to be regular visitors. She is particularly drawn to Joey–and the story opens with his suicide at the bookstore. As Lydia unravels the reasons behind Joey’s suicide, she is confronted with the unwanted intrusion of her own past–a horrific occurrence when she was a child that tore apart her world and ripped her from all sense of security she had ever known. Lydia has kept this part of her life hidden from her boyfriend and co-workers, severing her ties even to her father. But she is forced to confront the possibility that Joey’s suicide and her past might be connected.
A compassionate, multi-layered journey through the troubled lives of survivors and victims.
