[I received an electronic review copy of this from Netgalley and Kensington in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
Widow Mikki Lincoln has bought her childhood home in Lenape Hollow, NY for her retirement years. But the work needed on the old house is going to be extensive – and expensive. So Mikki takes her experience as a language arts teacher and turns it into a freelance editing business.
Tiffany Smith finds Mikki’s business online. Excited to find an editor in her own community, she shows up on Mikki’s doorstep with her manuscript in hand. She’s written a 1930s mystery based on a true story from Lenape Hollow. Mikki agrees to take Tiffany on as a client, but before she can dig very far into the book, Tiffany is found dead.
The Lenape Hollow grapevine is full of rumors. Maybe it was suicide. Maybe it was her husband whose business maneuvers have thrown the town into a tizzy. Mikki has to wonder if Tiffany’s death has anything to do with the book she wrote, but the police confiscated it right after Tiffany died. But Mikki’s curiosity kicks into high gear when multiple people accuse her of having something else from Tiffany. Then her house is ransacked. Mikki will need to put all the pieces together soon before the murder sets his or her sights on Mikki next.
Review
I love books with reading or writing-related storylines, so I have been looking forward to this for months. While the book is solid, it was slow paced for my preference. It was too easy to set the book down and forget about it. The characters didn’t quite click for me, either. Mikki is fine, but I didn’t connect with her in a way that made me want to keep reading until the story wrapped up. Usually the characters will push me to keep up with a series. In this case, the plot of the next book will really have to grab my attention for me to give the next book a try.
The mystery was well crafted. We didn’t even know what happened with Tiffany for a long time. Then Mikki had to dig into family, colleagues, and the book pieces, all while adjusting to her new community and picking up relationships with old friends. But I felt like the murderer was a little more obvious than I like in a mystery. I like to have to work to puzzle it out. There were lots of other things going on in the book; sometimes that is an asset when it helps diffuse the tension of the larger story or helps develop the characters. This time, for me at least, it was a distraction that kept me from really locking into the story.
I enjoyed the old relationships that kept sneaking up on Mikki. Since this was the first book in the series, that happened a lot, but they were good reminders of Mikki’s context and age and experiences. It was interesting that in many of these old relationships Mikki felt she needed to apologize for abrupt or abrasive behavior with people who were younger that she saw as annoyances as a teen.
For mystery readers who love digging into the community and people around the central mystery, or a slower placed story, this might be a great fit for you.