*I received a free copy of this novel from NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for my honest review.*

Rain is starting a book club at the library and the first meeting is full of ladies who are very interesting characters. When one of the attendees winds up dead, Rain and Julia investigate because all of the members of the book club have a motive, it seems. Eventually the only way to solve it is to hold another book club meeting.

This is a very, very light cozy mystery series. I enjoy the unique characters and the very small town setting with the lake. Good for a very quick read and a little mystery to boot!

Rain and Julia are starting a book club and tonight is the first meeting! Everything seems to be going well until it’s discovered that one of the members didn’t actually read the book and watched the movie instead. This gets some people kinda heated. But it all ends well and everyone goes their separate ways. The next day, Rain and Julia are visiting one of the book club members and discovers that she has died! Was it suicide or was it murder? If it was murder, who could have done this? So Rain and Julia decide to solve this mystery themselves!

This series is super cute and a quick read! Rain and Julia are such good friends and they kinda play off each other! I think it’s funny that they’re not afraid to solve the murder and they let Julia’s brother, who’s a cop, know that they’re gonna stick their noses into the investigation! I love the small town feel of this book as well. And a new character is introduced in this book and it’s a dog!! Give me all the dogs! I definitely recommend this series for anyone that loves cozy mysteries!

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

Most of the suspects are members of the book club, but there are a few red herrings to keep readers guessing the killer's identity. Unfortunately, I knew almost immediately who the culprit was, but this did not distract from my enjoyment in reading the entire book.

This new addition to the series has characters growing emotionally, with Rain and Jace, Julia’s brother and Rain’s love interest, becoming more than just childhood friends. We also get the experience of Rain and her new furry companion learning how to live with each other.

Rain has a way of investigating that can irritate suspects and sometimes readers, but her heart is in the right place. The killer is found, but not before Rain and Julia find themselves in danger once again. Overall, this is an interesting and enjoyable read that fans will appreciate.

I loved this book so much. I am new to Holly Danvers, but I am a fan! I can't wait for the next book.

Working on taking over her mom’s duties at the Lakeside Library, Rain is trying to adjust to her new role while trying to figure out her cooled off love life. As one of her first programs, she introduces a book club to the community’s patrons. Choosing an Agatha Christie novel as their first book, tensions among the book club attendees when one member admits they’ve only ever seen the movie. Soon a book club member is found murdered in the same manner as mentioned in Agatha Christie’s novel. To make matters worse, Jace, the police officer Rain is pursuing, considers her a potential suspect. Who killed the book club member? Can Rain solve the mystery before it’s too late? Can she get her love life in order?

The plot is well written, engaging, and keeps the reader wanting to turn the page. The characters are well developed and draw the readers into the story. Readers who enjoy cozy mysteries, Agatha Christie, and a touch of romance will want to pick this one up.

What a delightful cozy mystery, This book has all my favourite troops of cozy mysteries. Lakeside, small town, book related,
The book follows lakeside library owner Rain and her friend Julia. This time they have to find a novel solution in order to catch another killer before her book club members are picked off one by one.
If you are mystery book reader, specifically if you like Agatha Christie, you will definitely enjoy this book. I can’t believe I haven’t read Parkling Cyanide. And I have to pick it up. And maybe revisit lakeside library.
4.5 stars.
Thanks to crooked lane books, NetGalley and Holly Danvers give me the opportunity to read 5is book.

The library plays host to a book club.
I was able to deduce the whodunit but not the why. A very complicated cast of characters/suspects but Ms. Danvers does a great job with enough backstory to keep you in the loop making this an enjoyable stand-alone cozy.

I love the 'up north' Wisconsin setting. Rain is excited to revive the book club as the library opens up for the season. The first book for the group is fittingly enough, an Agatha Christie novel. Several members are new faces to Lofty Pines, WI. One will wind up dead and one a murderer. Rain and her friend Julia put their heads together and try to recreate the setting of their book club meeting to help them find clues to apprehend the culprit.

Read to Death at the Lakeside Library
By Holly Danvers
Crooked Lane
2023

Review by Cynthia Chow

While her parents burn up frequent flyer miles touring the world, Rain Wilmot is staying in Lofty Pines, Wisconsin and fully taking over her mother’s duties at the town’s Lakeside Library. Rain has also decided to resume their summer Book Club, with the first pick of the season being Agatha Christie’s “Sparkling Cyanide.” The meeting gets a little fractious what with the wine drinking taking precedence along with those who only watched the movie version, but it’s the death of one of the members not long after that has Rain truly alarmed. Worried that her selection of the book may have inspired a murder by poisoning, Rain and her frequent accomplice Julia Reynolds begin investigating those who may have wanted Lily Redlin dead. As it turns out, it may have been a book club member and not Agatha Christie who gave the killer a means for murder, which is why Rain and Julia feel obligated to break into their neighbors home, steal evidence, and possibly obstruct justice. It’s a good thing that Julia’s brother and Rain’s maybe-something Jace Lowe is a police officer, as despite his exasperation with them he does provide them with a few tidbits of authorized information. A temporary closure of the library due to possible poison concerns allows the staff to fully engage as investigators, looking not only into Lily’s death but a connected one from the past. Taking a lead from Agatha Christie, Rain even gathers together the suspects for a Book Club reenactment in the hopes of revealing the culprit. Whether or not this results in a solution using her little grey cells or only places herself as next in line as a victim, it will at least make for a lively next meeting.

This third in the series combines classic mystery tropes, romance, and a lot of suspense for cozy mystery fans. A sudden shift in romantic prospects has Rain reassessing her relationship with Jace, whose frequent visits to the library may be related to more than its proximity to the police station. Rain and Julia have a lot of leeway in their efforts to investigate, as they definitely push the limits of legality in their endeavors. A more somber note that is left open for more exploration is the concern over Rain’s fellow library staff member Marge Duncan, who attributes her moments of forgetfulness to simple old age and not something far more serious. There are an assortment of lively canine companions to keep things upbeat, from Marge’s cocker spaniel to Jace’s gorgeous Siberian husky. Now that she’s more settled in her life Rain might be ready to adopt a pooch herself, making her life an enviable one full of books and constant canine love. This is a very light-hearted cozy mystery sure to please those looking for exuberant characters and a mystery filled with Agatha Christie lore.

An atmospheric cozy mystery that will keep you guessing the motive and whodunit. I enjoyed the characters, the plot, and the setting of the Northwoods.
Many thanks to Crooked Lane Books and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I'm not sure I've ever stopped reading a book for a reason as possibly nutty as this one. I'm not sure what I'm referring to, myself or the plot.

The setting for this series is great. A cabin library found on a lakeside resort is more than most could ask. Almost anyone could dream that picture up in their minds. The cozy is basically ok. It starts out with a book club, a mystery, and a person murdered in a manner that came up in the book discussion. Fun huh?

Suddenly, someone leaves a note on the library door about the murder and one amateur sleuth talks the other into not showing it to her brother the cop lest he close the library for the summer. This just struck me as nuts. It’s as if the author needed to fit in a clue but didn’t know what to do if the police officers saw it. I stopped reading then and there. Just struck me as ludicrous.

Read to Death at the Lakeside Library
by Holly Danvers
Pub Date 08 Aug 2023
Crooked Lane Books
General Fiction \(Adult\)| Mystery & Thrillers



Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books gave me a copy of Road to Death to review:


Tourism to Lofty Pines, Wisconsin is in full swing as tourists return to the Northwoods. This is the perfect opportunity for Rain Wilmot to revive her mother's summer book club. One of the club's members, Lily Redlin, is found dead in her own home not long after the first meeting.



Together with Julia Reynolds and Jace Lowe, Rain finds that the murder is apparently inspired by Agatha Christie's classic mystery Sparkling Cyanide, which the club recently discussed. More importantly, why would anyone kill Lily?


As Rain dives deeper into the story, the plot becomes more complex. Was Lily murdered to cover up an old classmate's tragic accident years ago? Did Lily really possess a priceless original Laura Ingles Wilder manuscript and someone killed her for it? What about the mysterious letter Lily received just before her death? Was it a hoax?


With a long list of suspects and motives, Rain realizes all the leads point to the book club. She and her friends reenact the club's first meeting in order to flush out the killer, following Agatha Christie's example. Will Rain's plan succeed-or will the librarian's book be returned?

I give Read to Death at Lakeside Library five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

Super fun cozy mystery based in the Wisconsin. This is a story set in the summer and tourist season. During a new book club meeting, one of the club's members is found dead in her home with weirdly similar vibes to Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide book.

Rain works with her friends to solve the mystery. This series is always a delight!

A 4.5-star rating rounded up to 5 for Goodreads. I really enjoyed the mystery of this latest installment of one of my favorite cozy series. It was really good and kept me guessing. My main complaint was that Julia drove me a bit nuts at times. She was a little to gung-ho about solving the mystery which ended up putting Rain into some uncomfortable spots with Jace. Julia needs to calm down a bit in the next book. Otherwise, I loved this cozy!

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of Read To Death At The Lakeside Library (Lakeside Library Mystery, #3) by Holly Danvers. Being a huge Agatha Christie fan, I knew I wanted to read Holly Danvers' latest book since the storyline revolved around one of Christie's novels. When I was approved to receive a copy for free in exchange for my honest review, I was happy.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading Read To Death At The Lakeside Library. It was a super cute and fun read . . . a beach read if you will. The only thing I didn't care for, and it was a minor thing, is when Julia would substitute cute sayings like fiddlesticks instead of the actual curse word.

From the beginning, Holly Danvers gives us lots of clues as to who the murderer was going to be as well as giving the reader a couple of red herrings, but I kept thinking she was doing that to throw us off. For whatever reason, I kept thinking that Marge was somehow going to be the murderer, but I read too much into it and was wrong.

I really enjoyed the characters of Rain and Julia and wanted to be a part of their friend group!! Nick and Jace were really great characters as well. For the most part, all the characters were likable, which is a bit refreshing as I'm getting tired of books that only have unlikable characters.

Five out of five stars is what I gave Read To Death At The Lakeside Library (Lakeside Library Mystery, #3) by Holly Danvers. I can definitely say I will be reading other books in this series and can't wait to see what other mischief Rain and Julia get themselves into.

Princess Fuzzypants here: Now that Rain lives full time on Pine Lake and runs the Lakeside library, she decides to renew the summer book club. The first meeting is a lively affair with many differing opinions of the book of choice. The participants are suspected when one of their attendees is murdered by similar means to the one in the book. Could one of them be a murderer and what possible reason could there be for the killing.

It turns out that the deceased has had some big changes in her life, some good, some bad. Those changes muddy up the motives so that when Rain and BFF Julia start investigating, there is a lot going on. Some of it goes back decades. Some of it is a more recent vintage. And when Jace, Julia”s brother and Rain’s new beau, arrests someone, neither of the ladies is convinced it is the right person.

Here is where a strong story loses some punch for me. Rain is, by far, the least manic of the two when it comes to investigating. Jace is right when he says the two women are dangerous when they join forces. Thanks to Julia, they get into some very dangerous situations. Julia steers close to the Darwin edge but thankfully, things work out in more ways than one. Four purrs and two paws up.

Holly Danvers continues the Lakeside Library mysteries in Read to Death at the Lakeside Library. Lofty Pines, Wisconsin, is a closed in community around Lofty Pine Lake. Rain Wilmot runs the private library for the community; at a book discussion of Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide the group has diverse opinions of the plot. Then one of the participants is found dead--poisoned. Lots of suspects: have fun solving the murder.

It's summer at the Lakeside Library and Rain is holding the first meeting of the book club. But things really heat up when one of the members is found dead.
I liked this mystery because the plot kept me guessing, even though it took a while to get to the end. Rain is a wonderful amateur sleuth who tries to stay out of the way of the police and her hunky boyfriend. Julia, her best friend, is another fun character who always finds herself in deep water during their investigations. I can't wait until the next installment in this series. Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for this advanced reader's copy.

Read to Death at Lakeside Library is the third book in the Lakeside Library series and the first I’ve read. It was easy to get swept up in the story without having read the first two. Read to Death brings the reader back to Lofty Pines, a resort town in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, where Rain Wilmot lives and runs a private library. It’s summer and the resort town is hopping. Rain decides to revive her mother’s book club, starting with an Agatha Christie Mystery. When one of the participants dies unexpectedly soon after, Rain wonders if she was killed by someone in the group. It’s an uncomfortable feeling since she knows most of them well. She takes it upon herself to investigate along with her close friend Julia. A romance is growing between Rain and Julia’s brother, Jace who is a local cop. He takes Rain’s input seriously but cautions her against endangering herself by getting involved. The book is well-paced with a good-sized cast of characters. Some are likely to take their place in future books; plenty of others give the reader plenty of suspects to choose from. If you enjoy cozies in an evocative setting, you won’t be sorry you picked up Read to Death at Lakeside Library.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #CrookedLaneBooks for the opportunity to read this advance copy of Read to Death at the Lakeside Library in exchange for an honest opinion.

I adored this cozy mystery! The group of characters were fantastic, and I loved the beach setting. I enjoyed the plot twists and the mystery. It was well paced and well written!