4 stars--I really liked it.

What a wonderful, thoughtful, and devastating book. I couldn't stop reading. From the description, title, and cover, I assumed this would be a twee mystery, but it wasn't--it was a dark tale of violence and regret.

The book's main strength was in characterization. Lydia, Joey, Raj--I saw everyone so clearly, and ached for them. (Poor, sweet Joey.) Lydia especially broke my heart, but it was also inspirational to see her go from traumatized child to gracious adult. The minor characters (especially Plath) were also very well done. I felt like I'd met them (and visited the bookshop) due to the author's skill.

This book is a prime example of show, don't tell--we learn who the characters are through their actions and interactions with the world, not through lengthy descriptions, and it's beautiful. Highly recommended for suspense readers, or anyone who's interested in a compelling, dark, complex tale.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

I love books about books (ala The Thirteenth Tale and The Shadow of the Wind) so I had very high expectations for Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. I thought, hurray, a book about a book that takes place in a bookstore. Unfortunately, MatBIB came up short.

Bright Ideas really isn’t about books or a book store, to be perfectly honest, and I am not entirely sure that it should even be the name of the book. Yes, the main plot point takes place at Bright Ideas and clues are left in books, but the books and the book store are so secondary to the story that it really doesn’t matter.

Now, it may sound like I did not enjoy this book, and that is simply not true. It was an enjoyable read, and I was definitely hooked into the mystery. It is a quick read, and the plot interesting, but I pretty much had a good portion of the story worked long before “the reveal”.

In the end, it was just not enough “book-about-books” for me and I was disappointed.

I didn't expect this book to be so dark, but it also had a quirky side that made it interesting. The author did a fantastic job of tying all the character's together as Lydia tried to figure out the reason behind Joey's suicide. If you like thrillers, this is a good read.

A beautiful, warm and funny novel, multilayered and enaging. This is the story of humans learning to really see each other and also to heal from past wounds. Obviously the setting has a lot in its favour too. Excellent characterization. A surprise favourite.

You can pretty much guarantee that any story featuring books or set in a library will be appealing to me, but there was something different about this which made me very excited to get an ARC.
When one of the regular customers at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is found hanging, with a picture of one of the staff as a young girl in his pocket, we know we're in for something odd...but nothing prepared me for this.
The characters are all rather lost - for one reason or another - and they seek solace. Each has their own story to tell, but we don't see how they link until almost the last minute.

Excellent book. Very well written. Well paced and with enough twists that you're not going to figure out who did what until the end. Looking forward to reading more books by this author.

I am a sucker for any book that takes place in a bookstore, involves a bookstore or bookseller, basically anything that feeds into my bibliophile nature. There is one great debut novel that spills out when turning the somewhat ordinary (sorry for that) cover of this book. There are so many good things about the book it’s hard to know where to start.

For me a novel usually entices and then grabs me by the quality of the characters and how well they are defined. A plot can be great but if the characters aren’t believable or interesting I usually find my myself having difficulty getting into the story. So let’s talk about some of the great characters.

Lydia is a bookseller who is great at what she does and she loves her work. Lydia has loved books since she was very small, her father used to be a librarian and toted her to work with him since she was just a babe. She is a great bookseller because she listens to her customers and is able to discern what type of book they might be looking for. She has a big heart and makes room in the bookstore for those that she calls her “BookFrogs”, most of them down on their luck types who find refuge in the cozy atmosphere of the book store. Lydia enjoys listening to their conversations and befriends many of them. Joey is one of the youngest and brightest of the bunch and she has gotten to know him quite well. One evening after “ the store is closing announcement” Joey doesn’t come down from the upper floor. As Lydia climbs the stairs to check on him she finds that he has hung himself and it’s too late to help him, although they try to resuscitate him and call an ambulance, he is already gone.

Joey has no family and has left his meager belongings to Lydia. As she goes through his things she finds a photo of herself and her best friend Raj taken when she was blowing out the candles on her 10th birthday. Lydia had never even seen this picture. She wonders why and how Joey has this photo and why it was important to him. There are crates of books in Joey’s apartment and upon closer inspection Lydia finds that Joey has cut out windows and linked books to one another in order to leave messages in code. The more Lydia reads, the more confused she is as to what Joey is trying to tell her.

Lydia is hiding many secrets of her own. Something very terrible happened when she was young and afterwards she spent many lonely years in a cabin in the woods with her eccentric father. They moved to this isolated spot because her father was trying to protect her but from what and who?

Raj, one of Lydia’s close friends from childhood, finds her from the photo in the newspaper about the suicide in the bookstore. With some trepidation she invites Raj back into her life and they work together to try to discern how Joey fits into their lives.

Lydia decides to contact the police detective, now retired, who worked on the case from her past and listens as he tells her his suspicions about the unsolved crime. She is unconvinced that what he is saying is the answer, could someone she loves really be the perpetrator of a crime that left Lydia scarred forever?

This book kept me guessing until the end and I was not expecting the outcome at all!! This book is a fantastic read, so much more than a mystery, it is full of emotion and love, even some laughter. The only flaw for me was the ending describing Lydia’s personal life after the crime is solved. I felt it was a little too quickly wrapped up and not quite believable but it didn’t take away from my total enjoyment in reading this book.

I will certainly be looking forward to the next book from this talented author!

Will also post to Amazon upon publication.

This was an unusual story - I didn't know what to expect when I started reading, given the rather obscure description, but it wasn't what I got. That's not at all a bad thing, just an observation about how complex this story was. In hindsight, the description was spot-on; while I was reading it, I was always just a little unsettled and off-kilter, never quite sure what was going on (in a good way). What a delight that was! I read a lot, and it's not all that often that I get to say that I really had no idea where the story was going - and especially that I get to say it as a compliment.

This was an unusual narrative, full of sidelines that eventually became main lines and secondary characters that became essential. It is populated by a cast of truly unique characters, each of whom exhibited more layers than seemed possible. The concept of secrets is almost a character in and of itself - truths are buried in geological strata and only uncovered through painstaking searches and painful realizations that allow the story(ies) of each character to unfold in their own time. And above all, it is a book about books - about the power that words and stories carry in the world, about how they can save and overwhelm in equal measure...

Matthew Sullivan has talent. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next - if it is even half as intriguing as this book, it'll be something indeed...

I'd rate this 4.5 stars.

How do you select the books you're going to read? Oftentimes I'm drawn to books written by authors I love (and sometimes I decide to give an author another shot), and other times I choose books and/or authors which have been hyped or those about which I've heard good feedback. And then sometimes, it's something intangible, like the cover design catches my eye, so it leads me to read the description, and I'm hooked.

This is the crazy way my mind worked when I decided to read Matthew Sullivan's terrific Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore: I used to work in a bookstore, I love going to bookstores, and I really enjoyed Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (see my original review), one of the last books I read which took place in a bookstore. The gamble definitely paid off with this one—while it wasn't what I was expected, it was so much more.

Lydia is a bookseller at Denver's Bright Ideas Bookstore. Not only is she excellent at her job because she's well-read and perfectly satisfied to work where she is, she's tremendously patient with a group of people she calls the BookFrogs—the downtrodden, sometimes homeless regulars (most often men) who make the bookstore their surrogate home.

"Lydia's skills as a bookseller came mainly, she believed, from her ability to listen. A raging case of bibliophilia certainly helped, as did limited financial needs, but it was her capacity to be politely trapped by others that really sealed her professional fate. From bus stops to parties to the floors of the store, Lydia was the model of a Good Listener—a sounding board for one and all. Strangers and acquaintances and the occasional friend unloaded on her by the hour..."

One night, just as the store was closing, Lydia finds Joey, the youngest, most sensitive and inquisitive BookFrog, with whom Lydia has struck up a friendship of sorts, has committed suicide on the store's top floor. She knew that Joey had had his problems in the past, but he never seemed desperate enough to consider suicide. When she finds out that Joey has bequeathed Lydia his meager possessions—mostly a few random items and a milk crate full of books, most of which he bought from the store, she is saddened for the path his life took. But as she flips through his books, she discovered that pages in each were defaced, as if he was sending Lydia coded messages of some kind.

As Lydia tries to figure out what Joey was trying to tell her, she also finds among Joey's possessions an item from her own childhood, something she cannot figure out how he would have gotten. You see, Lydia has her own secrets as well, basically a childhood tragedy that has caused her to keep everyone, even her boyfriend, at arm's length, and never let them truly know who she is and what she has been through.

The messages in Joey's books, along with the resurgence of her own memories and insecurities, leave her on edge, a condition further exacerbated by the reappearance of one of her childhood best friends, as well as a dogged police detective and her estranged father. She is determined to find out what Joey was asking of her, and she realizes she needs to get answers to the questions that have haunted her own life since she was younger, even if that means reliving an experience that still chills her.

While this book is billed as a mystery, and there certainly are suspenseful elements of the plot, there is so much more to the story. This is a book about giving people a chance no matter who they are or what their background is. It's a book about friendship, sacrifice, the need to feel wanted and loved, the danger of secrets, the grief we keep hidden inside, and how the love of books can truly be pervasive. I found this book so surprising and so moving—even as I figured out how the plot would unfold I was so invested in Sullivan's characters I couldn't stop reading.

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is really a special book, and Sullivan is truly talented as a storyteller. Because it straddles a few genres, I hope it doesn't get lost in the shuffle, because this is a fantastic read—full of emotion, a little suspense, and a lot of heart.

NetGalley and Scribner provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

I am breathless! I just finished this book (thank you, Net Galley, for a copy in exchange for my unbiased review) and had to say something about it immediately. It definitely goes down as my favorite book I've read this year. The author found the perfect blend of suspense, heart, mystery, and description. I had no idea how it would turn out until the author revealed it - always so nice when reading a mystery to be kept guessing the whole time.

I won't give any spoilers, but I will say a few things:

1. Put this on your to-read list now.
2. The quirk of many of the secondary characters could have the author writing a half-dozen spin-offs.
3. And - I wish I could give Joey a hug.

Thank You Net Galley for the free ARC.

I enjoyed this book - first of all because it was set in Denver and I was familiar with the landmarks, second because it played in a bookstore and third because it turned out to be quite the suspenseful novel!
It all starts off with a suicide in a book store and a strange picture in the hand of the victim. This throws bookstore worker Lydia back into her unusual childhood. I don't want to tell you more in order not to spoil the mystery.

Very well-written debut mystery novel. Kept me interested all the way through and I was surprised with some of the connections in the story. I loved some of the characters - Lydia, with her traumatic past, and Joey, with his loneliness. Early in the book a young man hangs himself in the Bright Ideas bookstore - but this is just the beginning of the intricately woven mystery and the bits and pieces left by this man leads to surprising intersections of relationships and the truth of Lydia's past. Anyone who loves a good mystery will certainly enjoy this one.

My thanks to Matthew J. Sullivan and Scribner through NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review:
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

by Matthew Sullivan  
Pub Date 13 Jun 2017

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Perhaps I have a slight bias because it is based in Denver, CO.. I found myself wishing this bookstore existed and making comparisons to the old "Tattered Cover" - getting lost in the nooks and crannies and feeling as though you are welcome to sit and read even though you are in a store. I think every bibliophile's ultimate dream is owning a small local bookstore - I felt this way watching "You've Got Mail" too.
The story focuses on the main character and a trauma she suffered as a child. A very cold case suddenly heats up and she courageously follows leads to learn more about what happened to her as a child. I don't want to say more, because I'm afraid I would give something away.. Read this book! 5 stars

Thanks Scribner and netgalley for this ARC.

This novel will have you laughing, crying, and telling everyone you know to check it out. This is a mystery with mystery done so ingeniously it's genius

“He was a shattered young man, Lydia often thought, haunted but harmless- a dust bunny blowing through the corners of the store.”

Lydia Smith isn’t just the keeper of the books in the bookstore where she works, but of the collection of customers and the lonely, BookFrogs. The BookFrogs, the ones who come into the store to escape from the ruins of their lives, to find comfort within the pages of books, seeking acceptance in a world where they are shunned. Little does she know that one in particular, her favorite, is about to rip her quiet comfortable world wide open. Joey McGinty has always liked Lydia best of all the clerks, “the wooden floors around his feet would be spread with books about subjects as far-reaching as his thoughts”, it crushes her when he commits suicide by hanging himself, more so because she is the one who finds him, in the store. More than the grief, she is left spinning when she inherits everything he owned, and it isn’t much. Curiously, there is a mystery within his books, strange messages, unless she is seeing something that simply isn’t there. What if these ‘messages’ were no more than a quiet unraveling? What about Lyle, just where is he? How curious that the man, though so much Joey’s opposite, that was always glued to Joey is suddenly missing in action. Joey was like a bird, taken under the wise, decades older British man, fellow BookFrog’s wing. The constant presence, always to be found beside Joey “folded into corners for hours at a time”, with an enviable, beautiful affectionate friendship. If she finds him, can he see the reason in the suicide?

As she rummages through Joey’s belongings, her violent past creeps back into her life, a world she has made safe, unassuming, and simple. Her past begs the question, how much of a violent encounter during her childhood did she really understand? Just who was Hammerman? Why did he do what he did? Was she truly spared, or did her life end on that night too, just in a different way?

Lydia may be living in a safe bubble, hiding with her books, her customers but the Hammerman has never released his bloody claim on her. The tragedy of Joey’s suicide serves as breadcrumbs leading the past straight to her. When her childhood friend, Raj, happens upon her, she can no longer deny the hands of the past reaching, pulling her back home to unmask a killer. Estranged from her father, is it safe to return to the man whose behavior was increasingly bizarre? The man she abandoned to save her own sanity, family or not? What a child remembers and leaves for the adult self to sift through is often at odds with the truth, none more so than in Lydia’s mind.

What happens in this novel goes from heartbreaking, to downright brutal! I really had a hard time putting this book down when I was reading it. I held my fingers back for months as it isn’t out until June, burning to review it because I enjoyed this book for so many different reasons. The start of the novel eviscerated me, I hated Joey’s suicide so much more by the novels end and I was wounded and limping through everything that happened to all the characters from Lydia’s childhood. The senselessness tragedy of the crime, the terrifying fear of a young child and later, her father- how one moment of chance destroys more than one future, there is too heavy a reality here. Without going into details about my private life, this novel was read not long after something horrific happened to two people I knew and it made it seem less fictional. How could so brutal a story manage to make my heart tender too? With gorgeous talent, Matthew Sullivan took what could have been a horror story and turned it literary fiction. Often, thrillers have a way of making the reader feel detached, this is the opposite. I put the book down and felt a stony sorrow in my heart for quite some time after. Violence is a monster that stalks it’s victims, and all the bystanders, long after horrific acts are committed. How many lives are destroyed? In the end, even with the truth unmasked, does it ever truly settle us? It opens other wounds, and reminds us that sometimes reason is a hollow excuse. I kept thinking ‘there is no why’ to these terrible acts in the end. Oh so sad! Yes- add this to your summer reading list!

Publication Date: June 13, 2017

Scribner

I didn't expect this book to be so heavy, but I liked it. It was quirky and dark without being too dark. The quirkiness and little spots of humor kept it from topping over on itself.

I loved the characters and wish they were all a little deeper, but it was a nice little story regardless.

Free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Engaging characters (& the bibliomystery angle) grabbed me almost immediately & rarely let me go. Tightly plotted mystery within mysteries all character-driven & essential to the story. The only negative was a nagging want of more detail & Roth on tertiary & some secondary characters, but that would have unbalanced its tightly wound mystery.

FYI I received this ebook via Netgalley.com & the book's publisher free for an honest review.

Wow! I am searching for the words to properly describe just how much I loved this book. It is part mystery, part thriller, and part a love letter to books and the people who love them. The characters are human, broken, relatable, and so very easy to fall in love with.
Lydia, Raj, and Joey tell a story that is heart breaking, at moments terrifying, and filled with far too many lost chances.
Matthew J. Sullivan has told a story that is near impossible to put down. I would have read it in one sitting, but I had to wait for day light to read the section that scared me.
I will be recommending Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore to everyone I know!

Mysteries set at bookstores tend to fall into two categories - the ones that are extremely cozy and are read by grandmas and preteens (or maybe that part was just me) and the literary fiction conspiracy filled types. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore breaks out of these conventions and presents a gripping literary thriller that doesn't sacrifice good writing for breakneck plotting.

The book hooked me from the beginning, and I couldn't put it down. The world-building is great and the characters are very well developed. The only negative I would say is that the ending was a little rushed for me, but overall, I really enjoyed this. I look forward to reading more by Sullivan.