June 15, 2023
Old wounds opened by a Wisconsin book club may provide motives for murder. Now that she's set to take on her mom's duties at the Lakeside Library in Lofty Pines, Rain Wilmot is excited to introduce a book club to the library calendar. Once she and her best friend, Julia Reynolds, choose Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide as their inaugural book, they can't wait to see who'll show up to discuss it. At the book club's first meeting, the novel's plot points take a back seat to drama between club members, some of whom seem to have relationships or rivalries that go all the way back to high school. And that's not the only drama of the meeting: Lily, one member, realizes that Kim, another member, hasn't even read the book--she's just seen the movie. Rain and Julia find themselves playing peacemakers, reminding everyone that the club is supposed to be fun, right? By the next day, though, they're debating the wisdom of choosing a mystery over a romance. Speaking of romance, things have cooled between Rain and love interest Ryan Wright, so this might be the perfect time for Rain to pursue things with Jace, a great friend who's also Julia's brother. To make things even more complicated, life imitates art when a book club member appears to have been murdered by the same method as the victim in their recent read, and Jace, in his capacity as local police officer, is interested in Rain as a potential suspect. So plotting friends Rain and Julia have to crack the case. As amiable and mild as the lakeside life that inspired it.
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