Cover Image: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

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Member Reviews

Overal, this is a solid book. There is intrigue and secrets. One twist actually succeeded in keeping me guessing until the almost reveal.

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I requested this book because the premise appealed to my inner bookworm and I was not disappointed. This was a intriguing and thrilling novel that left you constantly wanting to know more

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This is a moving, multilayered, imaginative, brilliant, literary mystery novel set amidst the background of a bookstore, book lovers and books, set in Denver, Colorado.

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Oh my gosh!!!!! The. Best. Book. Store. Mystery. Ever. Ii enjoyed every minute of the ride. The twists and turns kept me wanting more. I couldnt put this book down.

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This was an unexpected read, that I did not expect the many layers of mystery. It will keep the readers turning the pages when you discover how intercounted the characters lives are. It is a read that will be suggested for book club.

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As a person who is not really a reader of dark mysteries, I found this to be a page-turner. Many nights I was cradling my phone, reading under the covers. Great dialogue, good descriptions of childhood in Denver and modern-day scene.
I grabbed this for the cover on NetGalley, and I kept coming back to it.

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Really enjoyed this book! Kind of a secret society-bookstore mash up! Really loved the combo and the fantastical, quirky characters introduced.

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I loved this book!

As an English teacher turned teacher-librarian, there was so much to love. The references were fabulous, the story was well developed and engaging, the characters were masterful and the structure was well executed.

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Oh my gosh!! Who doesn't love this title...I was having a lot of issues with my ARC so I decided to request the audio from my library...WOW!!! This was a great roller coaster of a book I loved trying to guess who done it! This would be great for a road trip!! I hope you all give it it a try, you won't be disappointed.
My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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This was a thrilling read. Suspenseful, hard to put down, and so entertaining. A few plot twists threw me off for a trip. Sad at parts, funny at times. Beware the hammer man!

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Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview this ARC of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore.

First off, let me just say that I love books about books. I am so enchanted at the idea of working in a musty old bookstore. Roaming the aisles amidst the spines of our literary greats. Add a whodunit in there and I'm totally hooked.

Lydia, an avid reader with a sordid past, lives a simple life at the Bright Idea Bookstore. Much of her life is spent with the "bookfrogs" displaced men who are finding solace and belonging in the bookstore. But her life is turned upside down when one of her favorite bookfrogs is found dead within her book stacks, with a childhood picture of her found in his pocket.

As Lydia starts to unravel her past, she finds herself way more involved in this young man's life than she ever could have anticipated. Lydia is forced to rekindle many old relationships, including that of her estranged father.

This was a perfect mystery for me. Not too dark, plenty of charm. Compelling characters. Add plenty of literary shout outs and I'm sold.

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Following a young woman with a hidden past dealing with the suicide at the bookstore where she works, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J Sullivan weaves a multi-thread narrative that flashes back and forth different time periods. The story begins with Lydia Smith finding a photograph of herself in the pocket of Joey Molina after he unexpectedly commits suicide. This discovery leads her on a long and winding path that will ultimately unlock secrets she’s worked years to bury and uncover information about the life she left behind years ago.

Sullivan skillfully creates a tangled mystery and methodically unravels the puzzle to a satisfying conclusion. There was never a moment when any reveals or actions left me scratching my head trying to make sense of things. Much of the novel centers on the theme of motivation. Why does Lydia keep her previous life deeply hidden? Why did Joey hang himself? Why did Lydia’s dad suddenly uproot and relocate the two of them to the woods? These and many other questions about what drives the characters actions are central to the story, with some being fully explored and others left to linger only partially explained.

However, the biggest issue for me was the distance that was created between the reader and the characters. I never felt like Sullivan did a deep dive with any of the characters and that left things feeling a little flat. Which is disappointing considering I really enjoyed the mystery. I never felt a connection with any of the characters much less Lydia who we follow most of the book. Yes, there is some backstory and personality conveyed, but nothing stood out as particularly interesting or endearing. I think more attention was given to ensuring that the puzzle’s solution was airtight, which I can appreciate, than creating a musli-layered protagonist. Overall, the story felt much more observational in a crime-of-the-week way that I would happily binge watch but probably won’t remember much by next week.

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This was a enjoyable book, even though I was able to figure out the killer, before the end. It did have some nice twists and turns.

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This turned out to be a much more complex story than it would first appear. Layers of mystery within family drama...with books thrown in to sweeten the deal. Dark, sad and very readable.

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Thank you to NetGalley for the free digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I am always surprised when I discover a book that I enjoy so much.

Anything set in a bookstore is a draw for me - but this is so different. I'm not even sure how to describe it.
It was a lot darker than I expected - and so many twists. Murder, books, suicide, authors and deceit. It was intense.

And using books as the clues was magical

The characters were wonderfully written - I felt like I could be Lydia's friend.

This is a wonderfully different read.

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This is a hard one for me to review. I neither loved nor hated the book, it was just kind of “meh” for me.

I tend to automatically add any book that takes place in a bookstore or library to my TBR, because as a book lover, I am drawn to books that talk about books. And there were plenty of books in this story. Lydia works as a bookseller and her father was a librarian. She grew up reading and spending all her time at the library while her father worked. No matter what happened in her life, books were her constant.

Books were also the tie between Joey and Lydia, as well as between Joey and some of the other characters. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, so I won’t go into detail on his connections with other characters in the book.

The story jumped between the past and the present a lot, and also jumps between Lydia’s POV and her father’s. This provides background and motivation. There are also characters from the past who pop back up in the present in weird ways.

I think that my biggest issue with this story is that I really didn’t understand some of Lydia’s motivations. I understood why she wanted to find out more about Joey, and her search for answers there. I understood why she didn’t readily share her past with people. I did not understand why her relationship with her father became so distant or why she reacted the way she did when her boyfriend admitted to knowing about her past.

Along the same lines, I didn’t understand Tomas’s complete change of character from before the incident to after. I think it was supposed to create tension, doubt, and suspense, but it really didn’t for me. And I don’t think this was ever really adequately explained.

There are a few other character motivations that I am completely baffled by, but I can’t share them here without spoiling the plot.

I did really like the characters of Plath and Lyle. I felt that they were loyal, caring characters who really supported the main characters. I also liked what little was shared about David, and would really have liked to see his character developed more. I think the plot could, and should, have gone in a completely different direction for his character. And Joey is probably one of the best characters in the book; his motivations became very clear the more we learned.

While I liked the way that the main storyline drew together and was resolved. I was bothered and confused by the ending itself. It felt kind of creepy, and I’m not sure if that was the way the author intended it or not.

All in all, this isn’t a bad book, it had some really good elements and nice character development for some of the characters, it just really wasn’t right for me.

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As someone who works in a bookstore, I loved this book! Great story and it kept me guessing until the very end. I have already recommended this to my coworkers!

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This was decent. It was a good mystery which I actually wasn’t expecting. I do wish there was a bit more action as far as the mystery solving was concerned, I think that would have been a great addition. I do not recommend the audiobook. The narrator was very monotone and took weird pauses with the dialogue and was sometimes hard to follow. Overall a good read.

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Loved, loved, loved this book! Lydia's story is compelling. Things start off a bit slowly, but that gave me time to get to know the characters and to wonder what the mystery was and how things connected. The writing drew me in and kept reading long past the time I should have turned out the lights for the night. Definitely recommend this wonderful book!

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After seeing this quite a few times on past linkups I was really excited to get a copy to read. It lived up to my expectations and was really good. It’s the story of a woman who works at a bookstore trying to solve the suicide of a friend. In looking into his life, she has to confront her past. There’s something about characters who have a love for books within a story. You can definitely relate to them. I didn’t see the twist coming but it wasn’t too outrageous. It was a quick read for me.

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