This was not what I expected. I had never read anything by popular author Sara Gran, and I was looking forward to this introduction to her work. I thought this would be a selection of miniature mysteries with clues so the reader could try to solve the crimes. However, not enough clues were given. One selection, which contained two timelines on one page, was challenging to read on my Kindle. Its title, Nine Miniature Puzzles to Confuse, was suitable (but I would omit the Enthrall and Delight wording).

The chapters were well-written and should appeal to fans of her books, but they didn't work for me. I did not read all the short stories. I think reading one of her books would be a better introduction to this author's works.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. Little Mysteries is due to be published today. 2.5 Stars.

Enjoyed this thoroughly! Was different than anything I have read. Wasn’t my first choice, but did like.

Little Mysteries by Sara Gran contained definitely more than nine titles within it. Most of the stories was written around Claire DeWitt (I have to be honest I have never read a book by Sara Gran prior to this one), her assistant Claude, or teen detective extraordinaire Cynthia Silverton. I was initially very impressed that the first couple of stories managed to have a certain melancholic quality to them, they were more like literary stories where someone happened to solve a mystery. By the 6th or 7th story I felt quite jaded, because ALL the stories were very bleak and had the same sad human condition (loneliness) as the main thing the characters ruminate about. I think only the second to last story was a real, proper murder mystery, instead of a sad detective story. Not to say that I didn't enjoy this book. I had a good time reading it and it was very well-written. It was just a bit one-note when read directly from start to finish.

eARC provided by NetGalley and Dreamland Books.

Sara Gran’s Little Mysteries is a collection of detective stories that are more character-driven than the average whodunnit. The detective stories we’re most familiar with are crafted with intricate plot twists and stock characters that serve as eye-catching ornaments in an elaborate narrative maze. Gran primarily contends with how mysteries affect human emotion and connection.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Dreamland for this digital e-arc.*

I was quite confused with this read. I understand that it was different short stories but then some of them were intertwined? It might've been better of they were all intertwined or all stand-alones.

This book is pretty much nonsense. I guess you might call it literary fiction. It’s stream of consciousness with no actual clues to the mysteries..

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

“Some days it feels like people just exist to break your heart, and other days and other people exist just to pour salt in the open flesh; sometimes it feels like entire months, years, whole decades exist just to hurt us like it’s their fucking hobby.”

I am a big fan of Sara Gran and her weird fiction - Come Closer and The Book of the Most Precious Substance are two of the most memorable novels that I've read in recent years. But I don't know how I felt about Little Mysteries! I enjoyed it when I was reading it, but had next to no desire to pick it up most of the time. A lot of the stories are inspired by detective novels, which are just... extremely not my thing, so to be honest, it's a testament to Gran's writing that I enjoyed this at all.

Structurally, I had no idea what was going on for a lot of the time here. It’s a short story collection that reflects on the author's previous work, written in simple, almost childlike language, and incoporating puzzles, games and Big Existential Questions About Life. I don't think I got it; I am not sure many people will. That said, I found the stories uniquely structured and some of these really worked for me (the beach one, showing eerie parallels in both the narrator’s life, and the AIDS crisis and COVID-19). I’m not a big mystery girl so a lot of the stories that didn’t play with form fell a bit flat for me. There are real gems in here; I loved The Good Smell of New York City/The Ocean-Salted Air, specifically. It's an innovative and compelling short story that has two timelines running parallel to one another. Both feature Claire DeWitt, teen detective, and one is set against the backdrop of AIDS, the other, COVID.

Overall, Little Mysteries is a fascinating experiment, one I'm glad I read even if I didn't enjoy all the stories.

Loved this immensely; the best of the Claire DeWitt sensibility and constantly surprising/affecting mysteries.

I first got to know this author through her Claire DeWitt mysteries. Claire felt like an original, something one does not always find in crime fiction. Knowing of the DeWitt stories, I was interested in taking a look at Little Mysteries. I am glad that I did.

Here is a quirky collection. For example the book opens with an entry entitled "Make Your Own Tool of Psychospiritual Divination. The illustration looks a lot like those old paper fortune tellers that kids make but with Gran's own take.

In the first story, a sheriff has trouble detecting due to a hangover. This leads to calling in "the best teen detective in the world." She arrives in a canary-yellow Cadillac and solves the case in a story that is just a few pages long.

The above gives a flavor of the author's nimble mind and her original ways of thinking. Her work may not be for everyone but those looking for an original read may want to pick this one up.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Dreamland Books for this title. All opinions are my own.

Sara Gran’s Little Mysteries are as large, human, philosophical, confounding, reassuring, mystifying and delightful as her previous books. Very excited to once again be in the world of Claire Dewitt!

Little Mysteries by Sara Gran is a collection of short stories that all have different mysteries to them. Most of the were inspired by classic whodunnit style stories and some of them feel more original.

I have loved books by this author so when I saw it available to request, I was on it! I didn’t know that this would lean a lot more on the cozy side so that was a surprise. I found this to be a mostly endearing little collection that I had a good time with but it wasn’t anything super impactful.

I can see why some readers would love this and I know exactly who I would recommend this to so I don’t think it is any way a bad book, just not exactly my thing. I do think the eARC was hard to read because of the way the story telling was done so I encourage anyone picking this up to try the physical book.

I love short story collections. Usually, I read them before novels. I haven't read any previous books by Sara Gran. This book was interesting book, filled with stories of mystery and quirky characters. I enjoyed this, but found my mind wondering as I tried to focus on the stories. Not a bad book, but not for me.

Little Mysteries: Nine Miniature Puzzles to Confuse, Enthrall, and Delight is a short story collection which ponder on the human experience and life's little mysteries. Lovely to dip into for a short thrill!

I haven't read any of Sara Gran's books before so was blind to who Claire DeWitt was. But I didn't need background to enjoy the book. I'll certainly be looking for more of her books in the future.

I'm not understanding how this is anything to do with a book of mystery puzzles? Am i reading the same copy as everybody else...Literally re-read the description 5 times and im still confused.
At any rate, this was not for me and im not even sure where to begin with all the Warnings over: Language, Drugs, Vulgarity.
Apologies for grabbing this ARC thinking it was something that it was not. (a book of mystery puzzles)

“Some days it feels like people just exist to break your heart, and other days and other people exist just to pour salt in the open flesh; sometimes it feels like entire months, years, whole decades exist just to hurt us like it’s their fucking hobby.”

Little Mysteries: Nine Miniature Puzzles to Confuse, Enthrall, and Delight is a short story collection that only Sara Gran could pull off. Ugh, I am not normally a short story kind of gal, but I ate this collection up in two days flat!

This series touched on so much of what it is to be human and to live a life worth living. For these stories being a bit quirky, there is so much depth hidden in these pages. I really love how there are overarching themes that pull the stories into one cohesive piece of work even if they don’t necessarily all contain the same characters.

This is one of those books where I feel like I cannot put the magic into words, but you just need to live it! Thank you to @netgalley for the advanced copy of this beautiful collection in return for an honest review. This book releases on 2/11/25 and you don’t want to miss it!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

This was a unique collection of short stories, some of which I really enjoyed, some of which I think either went over my head or just didn't capture me.

This is a clever, unusual and nostalgia fueled little collection of curiously charming vignettes that seem to ultimately reveal deeper reflections on life.

There is a focus on a handful of characters from Gran's previous work, and though I am unfamiliar with them, I was delighted to get to know them in these brief encounters. I went in anticipating a mix of puzzle-like mysteries and whodunnits, but instead was met with a series of simple but smart stories exploring the meaning and mysteries behind life, all wrapped up with a charming bow of solving crime with observant and intelligent characters not unlike Poirot and Marple.

A fun little romp that I would especially recommend to those who enjoyed Gran’s previous novels of the same nature.

Little Mysteries is a collection of mystery stories of various lengths. While there are two central detectives, Claire DeWitt and Cynthia Silverton, the stories don’t follow any typical mystery conventions. The last major story, The Mystery at Killington Manor or The Feeling of Seeing Clear Blue Sky After Being Lost in the Woods, is by far the most engaging and satisfying mystery of the bunch.

The other mysteries were a lot darker than I anticipated - more drug use, alcoholism, and homelessness. But they were easy reads, and the last story really made this worth reading.

Thank you to NetGalley, Dreamland Books, and Sara Gran for the advanced reader copy!

Little Mysteries delivers a collection of miniature detective stories that veer far from Gran's usual dark territory. Featuring her recurring character Claire DeWitt, a teen detective named Cynthia Silverton, and a 1949 manor house mystery, these tales focus more on existential questions and character studies than traditional whodunits. While I admired the craft and ambition, as someone who loved the gritty darkness of Gran's other work (particularly Come Closer and The Book of the Most Precious Substance), this cozy, philosophical take wasn't quite what I was hoping for.

Little Mysteries has the subtitle "nine miniature puzzles to confuse, enthrall and delight." With the exception of "confuse," every word in this title is a lie. There are twelve items listed in the table of contents. One is a "psychospiritual divination tool", which is unusable even if one is willing to cut a page out of the book, an option unavailable to anyone reading in Adobe or any other digital format. The rest are not mysteries and few of them are either enthralling or delightful.
The Claire DeWitt stories are irritating as they consist of the mental ramblings of the self proclaimed ;world's greatest detective. The Cynthia Silverton ("teen detective") episodes are, if possible, even worse. There is little detection going on anywhere in these stories and I hated both main characters. If the author's dedication to Donald Sobel (Encyclopedia Brown series) R.A. Montgomery (Choose Your Own Adventure series) and "Carolyn Keene" (Nancy Drew series) had appeared at the beginning of this book instead of the end, I might have understood what she was doing and saved myself some time.
I didn't mind reading The Case of the Blood on the Snow because it is a story told to Claire, rather than one in which she participates, about a nun and a homeless prostitute. I also liked The Mystery at Killington Manor because it told an interesting, if improbable, story from the perspective of a bright sixteen-year-old named Poppy Killington-Wade. It was hardly a mystery and the ending would be unlikely in the real world, but I might read a book about this character if it existed. My two star rating was earned by these two stories.
Almost nineteen years ago, I read a terrifying horror novel called Closer. I was so impressed by it that I went on to read three other books by the author, Sara Gran. All three (Dope, The Book of the Most Precious Substance, and Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead) disappointed me in different ways. I took a chance on Little Mysteries because it was free so I had nothing to lose but a few hours. I am very glad I didn't spend actual money or make a trip to the library to borrow this book. I would recommend Come Closer, which is, in its own way, as good as The Haunting of Hill House or Carrie, but I doubt I will ever bother reading another book by Sara Gran.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Dreamland Books for the free advance copy in exchange for my honest review.