This is the first in an engaging new cozy mystery from Crooked Lane, and I am already looking forward to more titles in this fun series. I love mysteries set in bookstores (this one is set in a library) and who can resist a lakeside setting. The characters are well developed and the suspects all believable. I read a lot of mysteries and this one had me guessing till the end. A great debut!

Murder at the Lakeside Library was a great mystery with twists and turn leaving you guessing until the very end.

We learn that Rain Wilmot has just returned to Lofty Pines. The family log cabin is her escape after the death of her husband. Everything is going well until a body is discovered inside the library right before the re-opening.

Rain has to put on her sleuthing cap and figure out who the killer is before her mother Willow is charged with the crime.

Loved the story and the characters.

I think this book is the promising start of a new series. I enjoyed the premise and the setting very much. The characters are interesting, and the book is a quick fast read. The mystery is well written, and I look forward to more in the series.

A promising start to a series. Since the Liberian theme has been overdone IMO I was hoping that other aspects of the plot would set this one apart. The widow instead of being cheated on and starting over in a new town was different, but the grief kind of made this a heavy read. I get why that is in the book, but it was a little too much at times. Hopefully the next book with be a little lighter.

After the death of her husband, Rain Wilmot leaves her job in Milwaukee and retreats to her parents’ cabin in Lofty Pines, Wisconsin, to try to find peace. Rain is trying to process a multitude of emotions, from grief for the loss of her husband to anger at his infidelity before his death. Fortunately, her close friend Julia lives next door and is available to offer Rain emotional support.

The cabin has a library attached to it which serves as the community’s only library and which Rain’s family had in the past opened as a lending library. With the help of Julia and Marge, an older woman who lives nearby, Rain sets about reopening the library for the town. Unfortunately, while moving boxes of books, Rain finds a dead body behind an old outhouse on the property. Because this is a murder mystery, of course it’s not just any body, but the body of a man named Thornton Hughes who had been a close friend of Rain’s mother, Willow, and with whom the local gossip network claimed Willow had had an affair.

Julia’s brother, Jace, a police officer is assigned to investigate. Unfortunately, he’s not willing to share information about the case with Rain and Julia. Fearing that her mother could become a wrongfully accused suspect in the murder, Rain decides to do some investigating herself. With Julia’s help, Rain reconnects with long-ago friends and discovers old family secrets as the two women make their way on a twisting and turning path to discovering the identity of the killer.

This is the first of two books in the Lakeside Library Mystery series but it is the second one I read. Based on the first two books, I’d say the series is off to a very promising start. The plot moves at a good pace and there are ample red herrings.

All of the characters are well-developed and believable. I was particularly impressed by the way the author portrayed Rain. All too often, authors present recently widowed female characters as distraught lost souls who are rendered one-dimensional because of their grief. While losing a husband is extremely traumatic and involves a rollercoaster of emotions, widows are so much more than their grief. As presented by Danvers, Rain is a complex character, appropriately showing different aspects of herself at different times: tenaciousness, confusion, grief, anger, courage, fear, happiness, and the rest of the emotions we all feel at different times and in different situations. I look forward to reading the next book in the series - and hopefully many more after that one.

The Northwoods of Wisconsin seem to be similar to "Up North" in Minnesota and makes a great setting for this new series. Rain has lost her husband and quit her job, heading to the family cabin to regroup for the summer while her parents are in literal different parts of the world. I liked the history of the cabin having been in the family for several generations and the addition of a lending library (Rain's grandfather was an author) was a bonus. Growing up as a "Laker", Rain is happy to reacquaint herself with best friend and neighbor Julia, Julia's husband Nick and family friend Marge. The dead body is almost secondary to the fascinating family secrets that are uncovered as the story unfolds. A great book all in all.

I enjoyed reading Murder at the Lakeside Library. This was a fast read with great characters. I will definitely be reading the next book in this series.

I loved it. It was a light, quick, fun read. It’s the kind of book that I look for when I read cozies. I would buy it for others and recommend it.

Rain returns to her family's cabin for the summer. She is trying to heal from the grief of losing her husband as well as her anger at him. Her parents seem to be having problems of their own and are not joining her at the cabin. That means Rain is in charge of the library along with her friend Julia and a neighbor. While trying to set everything up, a body is found on the property. As a first book it is okay. The scenes are a bit repetitious, and Rain does not make the wisest choices. Still I enjoyed the setting and premise enough to give the second book a try.

I also love a good cozy mystery and if it involves a library that I'm sold and this was no exception. All the characters were really fun and dynamic and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Murder at the Lakeside Library is not a great start to a new cozy mystery series. I had a difficult time getting through the book. The main character, Rain, wasn't all that likeable. The reader doesn't get to know anything about her really. She's very one-dimensional. The other characters are the same way. As far as the mystery goes, it felt like there wasn't a lot of time spent with Rain and her friend, Julia, investigating at all. It was mostly a lot of nothing going on. The murder also really didn't make a lot of sense once the motive was revealed because, again, there wasn't a lot of time spent by the characters investigating and finding clues. It's like the author forgot she was writing a mystery until the end of the book when she had to reveal all these clues that Rain and Julia never discovered. The killer ended up being someone I never expected because they were rarely in the book at all. It just wasn't good writing for a murder mystery. Hopefully the writing will be better in the next book.

A pleasant, if pedestrian, murder mystery set in a small village in rural Wisconsin. Rain has returned to the family cabin and discovers that she is expected to run the small local private library, just like her mother did. When a dead body shows up near her cabin, she is thrown into the middle of a mystery. For fans of pleasant, down-home stories filled with quirky characters in the vein of "Murder, She Wrote". A good read, well worth the time, but nothing super-special.

I wanted to give cozy mysteries a try so I decided to request this as it sounded right up my alley. Sadly, I did not enjoy this story as much as I was hoping. I will probably try a few more cozy mysteries to see if it's me or just this book. The writing was very good but the mystery just didn't grab me or make me excited to be reading it.

I really enjoy cozy mysteries and looked forward to reading this book. As in typical fashion, the main character sets out to solve the mystery. There were few characters but they were well developed and the relationships were entertaining. This was not one of the best cozy mysteries I have read and I probably will not continue with the series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

Such a fun cozy mystery. Great amount of characters, suspense and an idyllic setting. I will definitely be looking for the next in the series. Thanks to NetGalley for the privilege to read and review this book.

First in a new series Murder at the Lakeside Library is more somber in tone than alot of the usual cozy mysteries. Reeling from the death of her philandering husband in a motorcycle accident Rain retreats to the family cabin slash local library in the Northwoods for the summer and from there things go haywire. Her summer BFF from childhood, Julia, lives next door and comes off as a little loud and pushy but well meaning. An elderly volunteer for their little library and her adorable dog Rex don’t get enough page time. A dead body in the outhouse sends Rain spiraling even more than she was and after one or two haphazard attempts to gather ‘intel’ for Julia’s deputy brother that in now way, shape or form wants their help they solve the mystery and all’s well that ends well. I enjoyed the story but would have liked a little more meat to the actual mystery and a tad bit less of Rain’s self reflection. Overall I’m still in for book number 2.

Series starter, with a rustic “Laker” library, you should be sure to “check it out!” I was instantly hooked by the tragic start, pulling on the heartstrings and making Rain an easy character to empathize with. She was looking for quiet reflection and what she got was a loud distraction. Engaging characters and a plot that keeps pace, not-to-mention a really nice pesto chicken recipe for grilling shared at the conclusion of the story.

This was...not great. The dialogue was extremely clunky and unnatural, and that really distracted from the story. The book also has very few characters, which made the characters that are included seem very forced together. I also thought that, based on the title, this would be more of a literary-themed mystery, when it was actually more about the lake and the vacation homes. I would be interested to see if this series gets progressively better going forward.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. Witty, enjoyable read like a cozy mystery book should read. Characters who make you laugh, you find relatable and enjoy their story make it that much more enjoyable.

This is the first book in a new cozy series. Rain has returned to her family's lakeside cabin in Northern Wisconsin after the death of her husband. When she arrives she reconnects with old friends and learns she will be in charge of opening the lakeside library. I had a hard time enjoying this book. The main characters were not likable, they were very snobbish about those who were and were not Lakers. The mystery made no sense. There was a lot of repetition. The main character was way too immature. I did like the lakeside Library setting. This book was just a miss for me on many levels.