25 Jan / The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick [in Booklist]
So you’re gonna find some conventional tropes here: mousy librarian, selfless sister/selfish sister, domineering father/submissive mother, free-spirited granny, mysterious guardian angel. But before your rolling eyeballs get stuck, two words on why you need to listen: Imogen Church! Perhaps best known for voicing clever thrillers and gruesome mysteries (including Ruth Ware’s entire oeuvre), Church is positively irresistible in creating the many residents of a tiny seaside town.
Because of her self-effacing, never-say-no demeanor, the town seems to revolve around Martha Storm, who in addition to being the “guardian of books,” also fixes, cleans, and cares for just about everything anyone asks of her. Her parents (whom she nursed for 15 years) have passed, her younger sister is distracted by her own family.
One evening, a package containing a book of eerily familiar fairy tales appears on her doorstep – with an inscription that her beloved, three-decades-dead grandmother isn’t … well … dead. Of course, she’s got to solve the who, what, and how, and along the way, finds shocking answers, lost connections, and – most importantly – a long overdue sense of stalwart self.
Review: “Media,” Booklist, January 3, 2020
Readers: Adult
Published: 2019