Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, Matthew Sullivan

I thought this was quite a find. The author, Matthew Sullivan (no relation to my character, also a novelist, with the same name in The Adulteries of Rachel), has an eye and appreciation for the ways in which human weakness and vulnerability can draw our hearts.

I felt for all of his characters deeply, and I thought the story was told brilliantly. Particularly striking was his account of a murder from the perspective of a child: how unfamiliar things might sound like familiar things out of context. He has a real sense of how trauma can impact and stay with people - children and adults - for years and years, something that's often missing from thriller & cozy murder mysteries.

Additionally, Sullivan's writing is fun: he uses surprising verbs and adjectives, or uses them in surprising ways. Many sentences have this delightful, lively quality. I'll be looking for more of Sullivan's work.

The Night Strangers, Chris Bohjalian

Contemporary paranormal mystery/suspense. A family in the wake of trauma moves to a creepy house in small town New England where the eccentric residents are way too friendly.

What is probably most striking is that the multiple POV narration includes extensive 2nd person present ("You do this; you remember that," etc.), which I found distracting rather than engaging. It also seems to me that there are two main story lines, and while you'd expect cross-over points, they really feel independent of each other. The book starts with a fantastic description of the house and a small door nailed shut with 39 iron bolts, but this ultimately felt under-utilized.

I did get more into the book as I kept reading. At its best, I felt the book worked as a metaphor for a family dealing with trauma.