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.

How do you turn the page on one horrific, mind-shattering experience that locks into your psyche like handcuffs on a wayward criminal?

Or in Lydia's case, make that two..........

Lydia Smith works as a dedicated clerk at the Bright Ideas Bookstore in Denver. And no one had any idea of what would await her in the upper level of the store that day. Lydia has her friendly BookFrogs who perch on chairs and seek out favorite niches within the shop on a daily basis. She loves the banter and the warmth of this atmosphere. But one of those BookFrogs, Joey Molina, hasn't come down after the "time to close" warning.

Lydia rushes up the stairs and is struck speechless. Joey has hung himself. While Joey never really interacted with the others, his landlady gives Lydia stacks of books from his apartment. Joey had no family or friends. And Joey had no story.

While flipping through the books, Lydia realizes that there is a series of codes within each book that Joey created with an exacto knife. Once Lydia gets the hang of it, she starts to decode strains of information about Joey. Something is out of kilter here.

And you'll find out something beyond out of kilter in regard to Lydia's past. You'd swear that this episode from her childhood had been penned by the likes of Stephen King in his earlier offerings. There's plenty of sprinkles with a side order of creepy here.

Matthew J. Sullivan presents a story like no other in that pile of books on your own table. There's plenty of mystery, unsolved crimes, searches for identity, family relationships, and a nice round of humor tucked in for good measure. Sullivan's use of Joey's code is a creative one. As readers, we like to work a bit along the storyline. And Sullivan provides that. Oh, dear sir, I am anxiously awaiting your next one and what you might just serve up..........

I received a copy of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Simon & Shuster (Scribner Books) and to Matthew Sullivan for the opportunity.

Wonderful book! The Bright Ideas Bookstore appears to be inspired by my favorite bookstore in the world : The Tattered Cover in Denver. The story is captivating; we follow Lydia as she tries to unravel the reasons behind a patron's suicide. When her investigation overlaps with a past traumatic experience in her own life, Lydia realizes how much the past has controlled her present. Sullivan writes believably from a woman's point of view (which is unusual for a male author). He weaves a complicated but credible plot with engaging characters. Sullivan is a gifted writer and I look forward to his next book.

I gave up after reading 10% of this because the story didn't interest me.

Multi-body mystery with a bookseller heroine who is disconnected from her life. As Lydia researches her past and men from it keep surfacing the book becomes a thriller, and the coincidences stack up. The relationships in the book ring true and are particularly well-written. Lydia is lacking in humour, which I find hard as a reader, but makes perfect sense given her life story. Many will enjoy this cross-genre novel.

“Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore”- I love the title of this book. It immediately offers me a world that I want to step into, one of books and possibly something whimsical or nefarious, depending on what kind of association you produce for the idea of midnight . It turns out that in actually there is less whimsy and more horror, and yet this chilling mystery book has a kind of earnestness at the center of it all that keeps the characters real and the readers sympathetic.

This story did not have me guessing until the very last page, but I didn’t mind that. Rather, as the carefully laid pieces of the puzzle began to come together I was pleased that nothing was far-fetched, nothing strained credulity, and the effect of the whole story coming together was one that allowed for there to be a certain amount of closure for many of the characters, something that is often left out of the more chilling thrillers. What the blurb did get perfectly right was the blend of heart-pounding scenes (I looked at my kitchen sink differently for a whole day) and capturing the culture of an independent bookstore and the kind of people who work there, especially in an urban area during the 1990s. I both wanted to be like them, and was wonderfully apart from them. It was a delight to meet all these people who were never shaped to be perfect corporate cogs.

There is more than one mystery presented in this book, most of them revealing their secrets, and some of them, in the case of the people themselves, remain slightly unknowable. Overall I liked going on this adventure with these characters. It didn’t have the “I didn’t see that coming” twists, or the kind of dark tension that is the cornerstone of other thrillers, which tend to be my favorites, but I truly enjoyed how cohesive the story was, and how much I rooted for Lydia to be okay.

I picked up this book expecting a charming, cozy mystery set in Denver. What I got was so much more. This is a wonderfully written debut novel. Sullivan gives us a literary novel that starts with a suicide, ends with the resolution of a twenty year old cold murder case and in between yields reflections about family, culture, belonging. And, not insignificantly, this book sings the praises of books and reading and the ability of books to change a life. Well-paced and well put together, this book is a gem. Highly recommended.

Cute, cozy mystery. The pacing was a bit slow at times, but overall, it was enjoyable and i look forward to reading more by this author.

I absolutely loved this book. I expected more of a light fluffy story...which it wasn't. Despite that, it was a fantastic mystery. I wanted to immerse myself in this world... I wanted to go shopping at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, I wanted to get to know Lydia (and Plath), and I wanted to go back in time and get to know Joey. I look forward to reading more books from this author.

This was a deeply immersive tale, weaving a past tragedy with a present one, and I couldn't wait to see both of them unfold. A wonderfully intriguing mystery.

It all starts with a suicide.

Lydia Smith lives a quiet life. She keeps a life that is surrounded by mystery. Her boyfriend knows little about her past, he's never met her family. She sells books at a downtown Denver bookshop, where "BookFrogs" - the lost and lonely regulars spend their day, filling seats. One night, as the store is closing, Lydia's favorite "frog', Joey, hangs himself from the rafters....and this is where the story takes off.

Matthew J. Sullivan has written a book that is exciting and mysterious. It's a book about a childhood, a tragedy and about family. We are all haunted by things in our past, and Lydia is no exception. Sullivan has created a world, that despite the Colorado winter, that I wanted to be part of.

Thanks to NetGalley, Matthew J Sullivan and Scribner for this eARC in exchange for this review.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for my review. I typically start a review with a description of the story, but I can't wait that long to share that this is the best book I have read in a really long time and I read a LOT of books! Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore will make the top of every "must read book of the summer!"

Lydia Smith is a reclusive bibliophile who works at a neighborhood bookstore. One night at closing she discovers one of the bookstore's regular customers has hung himself, and as she struggles to free him, she sees a photograph of her at her tenth birthday party in his pocket. Joey Molina, before his death, put together a very challenging set of clues for Lydia to figure out who he was and along the way Lydia is going to, quite possibly, learn who she is as well. This is a suspenseful, psychological, mystery and I literally found myself gasping out loud at the twists and turns in this novel. It is a must read and a must buy!!

I came close to giving this 5 stars--I thought it was a great story! The mystery kept me guessing and it was so well written. The characters were well developed with such poignant stories of their own. Vivid descriptions and clever words had me highlighting several passages.
The first couple chapters were dark but then it took off and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The bookstore setting was wonderful--I wanted to go there!
Highly recommend!
Advanced reader copy courtesy of the publishers at NetGalley for review.