I was sent Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan to read and review by NetGalley.
I can’t ever resist a story that has books at its heart so I had high hopes for this novel. The protagonist is librarian Lydia Smith who works at the said Bright Ideas Bookstore, a place that has a myriad of themed reading spaces and many homeless/displaced people, known as BookFrogs, frequenting them. The book concentrates on Lydia’s search to learn the reason why one of the BookFrogs, Joey, bequeaths his book collection to her after committing suicide in the store. As the story unfolds we learn more about Lydia and her traumatic past along with her relationships with her childhood friends.
It is well written and I enjoyed this novel on many levels but I could only bring myself to give it four stars as I wasn’t totally bowled over by it.

Mystery set in a bookshop? Well, that’s me sold already! Small warning, though, that this is not a cosy mystery à la Elementary, She Read, but a fair bit darker. However, it’s firmly in the ‘mystery’ and not ‘thriller’ category, so nothing trying to make you jump – perfect!

We start off with the suicide of a regular patron – a ‘bookfrog’ (heh, it was meant to be reviewed here, wasn’t it!? 🙂 ) – of the titular bookstore. When Lydia finds the body, she also finds a 20-year-old photo of her tenth birthday party in his pocket. How? Why? And then another photo – a newspaper snap of her coming out of the bookstore alongside the stretcher – suddenly brings a rush of her long-avoided past to sweep her back up.

While most of the story follows the current interlacing mysteries, we get plenty of flashback chapters, taking us back to a time just after that first photo was taken, when Lydia lives through a huge trauma – no spoilers! – that is still impacting on her life today. Old friends, estranged parents – it seems like everyone is coming out of the woodwork, and Lydia will no longer be able to put her past behind her.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, including the slightly darker tone. Lydia is a very well-written character, with just the right amount of fear and courage, and believable responses to things that (have) happen(ed). The other characters are kept more secondary, but not 2-dimensional, keeping the focus on the plot’s twists and turns. Okay, so the final denouement perhaps relies on a few too many coincidences, but for the main they are woven very organically into the story and kept me guessing the whole way.

I think, with this book, I’ve come to realise that I really like the mystery genre. I’ve dabbled in the past with more ‘thrillers’, but am rarely in the mood for that kind of ‘Danger! Danger!’ approach. MatBIB kept me mentally intrigued, without having to reach into the disturbing territory. More like this, please!

Wow! Two of my favourite things, murder mystery and a bookshop, what's not to like. Great plotting and characters, but a bit meandering at times. Would probably make a great film as very atmospheric.

This is definitely not my usual kind of read however it was very well written and I actually wanted to continue reading to get the answer to the mystery. I'm not going to say too much because this book is all about the mystery and ruining that would not be good but I did really enjoy the story and the characters.

While not my usual genre I would read more by this author.

This is a murder mystery crossed with a cold case investigation and overall it was a good reading experience.

When a troubled young man commits suicide in the Bright Ideas Bookstore he is found by one of the staff members, Lydia. Like everyone she is deeply shocked, even more so when she finds a picture of herself at her 10th birthday party in his pocket.

What follows is Lydia’s attempts to unravel the mystery and along with some quirky characters dark secrets get exposed. Secrets that are a lot closer to home than what Lydia could ever imagine.

I enjoyed how the almost random connections of the characters were brought together to make sense at the end.

The one think that bothered me though was the reasons why Lydia was estranged from her father for over a decade. From what I can gather in the story, they just drifted apart when she was a teenager, but her reaction when her father tries to re-establish contact was a little over the top for me.

The overall feeling was one of sweet quirky story even though it did veer into darker territory at times. I think this would make a nice holiday read, it was not overly shocking or scary, just a nice and easy reading experience.

I read this at one sitting. An enjoyable book, bookstore as social services centre. Are there really bookstores still open at midnight in the USA?!
(spoiler) The suicide was shocking, as were the murders, and we follow Lydia trying to literally piece together the truth.
There were a few too many coincidences for my taste, Irene in the Vital records dept was a deus ex machina, how convenient that Raj happened to be named on the forms. The characterisations were a little one dimensional, the burnt out cop is too cliche, and it could have used a bit more description of people and places.
Overall i enjoyed the story, and will be recommending it to others.

Thoroughly enjoyable book. Full of twists and turns and the odd red herring thrown in. The lives of the characters were well laid out, to give the reader insight into their pasts and how they all came together. As for the end? Didn't see that coming! Thoroughly recommend this book

A brilliant read! The story unfolds in such an unexpected way that you are gripped to the end.

An interestingly dark little tale, belied by it's cheery title! I liked the gradual unfolding of the backstory and the psycho killer undercurrent but felt the central romance was too fractured for me to invest in particularly. I was a fan of the idea of books as mysterious coded communication devices and the cast of characters who love them was appealing, if somewhat underdeveloped. For instance, we are given several vignettes of bookstore staff which seemed a liitle pointless: why did we need to hear about the backroom worker who just left one day, or the chain smoking older lady who lends Lydia her car but hasn't much other purpose?
I'd read more by this author though.

Absolutely gripping, A fantastic book,not my usual read but it had me hooked.

This book is like a puzzle you get sucked in and can’t resist to complete. There were many ‘Oh’ and ‘Ah’ along the way, because things you get to discover come as a total surprise. The darkness of story is just detached enough to not get melancholy and keep digging along for more clues and discoveries.

Wasn't sure about this book at all, but very glad I requested it. Very nicely written and with a series of sympathetic characters, especially Lydia. There were no great surprises, but the plot ticked along well and you were kept waiting to see if your guesses at what happened were correct. Recommended.

I had a wonderful time reading debut novel - Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan. Surprisingly I managed to read it in one day as I had the solve the mystery that is at the heart of this novel. It opens with the suicide of Joey - a regular 'Bookfrog' at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. The main character Lydia, is bequeathed his possessions and as she goes through them she discovers that Joey left her a secret message. To uncover this message, she starts to shake up other parts of her life. Ultimately solving this mystery leads to solving something very dark which happened to Lydia when she was still a young girl, leading her to reunite with her father and old childhood friend. The novel was frighteningly complex and I am in awe of Sullivans talents to map the various characters arcs in the story. I look forward to reading more books by Matthew Sullivan in the future.

Lydia works at the Bright Ideas Bookshop which acts as a home from home for various lost souls both within the staff and the customers. Late one night, Joey her favourite customer or BookFrog as they are known, hangs himself in the Western History section. The novel focuses on discovering why Joey committed suicide but also on Lydia’s backstory from her childhood.

Joey has left Lydia a number of books within which she begins to discover clues to his past and the reasons for his desperation. Her investigations lead her to reconnect with her estranged father and a friend, Raj, from her childhood.

This is a well written novel with very human characters. It has themes of survivor guilt, betrayal, loyalty, love and loss. I really enjoyed it and the ending was a surprise to me: be prepared to be immersed in the story and impatient to find out what happens next. Highly recommended. I hope the author writes more.

ARC received from NetGalley and publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

This is the story of Little Lydia, who is learning to live with life after something truly awful happens to her. And not your normal, oh this is so awful, I mean inexcusable and unescapbale. It is how her life got turned upside down and all the repercussions as a result.

I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting with this book (mainly because all I really knew about it was it was about a bookstore that had a name that I love), but I got a lot out of it. I felt we grew and learnt with Lydia and the intrigue that was imbued within the pages made it a delight to do so. This is the story of how life changes, and how things that you don't even realise are related have the possibility to change everything. No man, after all, is an island.

A very wonderfully written book, that was clever and funny, engaging and intriguing. I will definitely be looking out for this author again.

If this is a debut novel, we have lots to look forward to. It may be essentially a murder mystery but the context is clever and riveting. The setting in the quirky bookstore is interesting in itself and the characters are well drawn and believable. There is so much more to this story than the solving of a murder and as the tale unravels, you'll wonder how you didn't guess the outcome earlier on. I can't wait for the next book from this author!

This book is like peeling an onion, it has so many different layers.

In the opening pages we meet Lydia who works at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, she spends some of her time looking out for the bookfrogs, some are homeless, some lonely, some just like being with books. One of Lydia's favourites is Joey, who she finds hanging from a rafter, during the aftermath of this she finds a photograph of herself in Joey's pockets, this is worrying for Lydia as she had changed her name after being involved in a horrendous crime many years before.

The story is then told in part fllashbacks, part real time of what happened to Lydia, how Joey is involved, and also about how relationships from when she was a young child at school, impacted and changed not only her life but the lives of others.

If you had asked me straight afterwards, I would have said 10/10 I loved it, but after ruminating for a couple of days some things bugged me.

David was supposed to be the love of her life, but I'm not sure Lydia treated him very well at all, Raj, for me, became quite stalker like in his fixation on Lydia. which I found a bit creepy and very off putting. I found I didn't actually like or empathise with either of their characters, especially towards the end.,

I think once the big surprise is uncovered, the rest falls into place so it doesn't seem so much of a mystery, more a picture of families who have fallen apart.

I did like the story and the way it evolved, and enjoyed 95% of the book, I felt the epilogue let the book down.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for giving me the chance to review this book.

This book is by a new author Matthew Sullivan, when this book was suggested I wasn't sure what to expect but I was intrigued by the description so I thought I'd give it ago, thanks to net galley, it focuses on a young girl called Lydia who works at a bookshop, frequented by waifs and strays, one of whom called Joey who,commits suicide in the store, but why does he have a picture of Lydia as a child in his pocket?
Can Lydia solve the mystery of Joey and find herself in the process.
I did enjoy the story, it isn't one full of action and adventure but it does build up steadily to a satisfying conclusion, I look forward tormenting some more from this author.

When i saw the description for this book i knew i had to read it. A book shop, murder, mystery, those are all of my favorite things. This had an intriguing main character and was beautifully written. I encourage everyone to read this.

Thank you Netgalley and the Publisher. I was not sure about this book but the word Bookseller had me sold. This is a beautifully written book. It drew me in from the first few pages. I really liked Lydia Smith as well as the rest of the characters in the book