Death By Beach Read-OBX cozy mystery, Lighthouse Library Mystery #9 By Eva Gates-Review

280 pages Crooked Lane Books June 07,2022 publish date

About The Book

Librarian Lucy’s new historic house comes with a lot of baggage and family secrets. Can she put them to rest or will a killer bring Lucy’s family to their downfall, in the 9th Lighthouse Library mystery.
 

It’s spring in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and Lucy and Connor have moved into their new home at last, a historic cottage on the Nags Head Beach. The house needs a lot of renovations, but they worked hard over the winter to get it ready. Lucy is now happily immersed in her work at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, planning her wedding, and decorating the house. That is, until a dead body disrupts their peaceful new abode.   
 
The first night Lucy’s alone in the house, with the company of Charles the library cat, she hears sounds. Investigating they see footsteps in the dust of the unfinished living room, and the door to the outside is open. Lucy’s reminded that the house is said to be haunted: forty years ago the teenage daughter of the owners fled in the night, and never again stepped foot inside her family home.
 
But the sounds have an all-too-human origin and one evening Lucy and Connor find the dead body of a man they don’t even recognize in their kitchen. They soon realize he has a long-time connection to their house. Lucy’s forced to find out what happened all those years ago and why it’s threatening her happiness today.
 
Meanwhile, the Classic Novel Reading Club is reading The House of the Seven Gables by Nathanial Hawthorne, a book about another old house full of secrets. Can Lucy find parallels to her own situation in Hawthorne’s fiction before the killer strikes again?

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My Thoughts

Death by Beach Read is the ninth book in the Lighthouse Library Mystery series.
I enjoy reading books about places I’ve visited, and this takes place on the Out Banks of North Carolina, Nags Head and Bodie Island Light House. Such a beautiful area. While the lighthouse in the story houses a library, living quarters and offices from visiting I know there is no room for this but its fiction so allowable it is.
Having read and enjoyed others in this series I am familiar with the characters Lucy, a transplant from Boston and Connor, the very busy mayor. They have moved into a newly renovated beach house and are settling in with her library cat Charley.
Her first night alone in the house provides to be too spooky with sounds coming from the closed off upstairs area and footprints in the dust.
When a body of a man the homeowners don’t even know turns up in their house it’s time to take into account the old rumors about the house being haunted.
Will the cat’s nosing around turn up anything but mice in the empty and dusty areas of the home?
Action, suspense, wedding planning, a library, a cat, sleuthing this book has all you need to be satisfied with a great cozy mystery.
I am enjoying this series and a lot of the same characters in each book. Wonderful, easy to follow plot. Some cozies can confuse you with too much going on, not so with this one. Recommended!

Pub Date: 07 Jun 2022
I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.

About The Author

Eva Gates is the pen name of Canadian author Vicki Delany. As Eva she writes the national bestselling Lighthouse Library cozy series for Crooked Lane Books, the latest of which is DEATH BY BEACH READ, coming June 2022.

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