Who wouldn’t want to hang out in a bookstore where the owner senses what books you need to fill your soul or solve your problems? Or visit a bakery where the baker can make the scone that you need exactly right now?
In The Secret, Book & Scone Society, Adams takes this intriguing idea and runs with it when a stranger comes to the little town of Miracles Springs. He’s got a hole in his heart—and a change of mind for possible nefarious deeds that his business partners are proposing—and meets the protagonist Nora Pennington on a park bench. She directs him to the bakery and then to come to her store, Miracle Books, where she’ll find the books that will be perfect for him.
Nora’s got her own wounds. She’s had burns on her arms and face from an auto accident, and she’s used to strangers staring at her. It was enough for her to leave her old life behind, but in her new life, she’s wary of any relationship that might turn into a friendship.
The stranger never comes to the bookstore, and Nora learns that he was killed by a train. The sheriff calls it suicide, but Nora suspects differently. To get investigate, she has to become friends with three other women, the town’s baker, hairdresser and bath attendant at the town’s Miracle Springs hotel. Nora is forced to open up to these women in order to understand the clues. It’s difficult for her, and when she withholds information about her own life being threatened, the other women call her out on it.
The trail leads the four women to a development company developing a subdivision outside of town, where everything isn’t as prosperous as it seems. Along the way, she meets the attractive paramedic who sees beyond her scars and appreciates who she is.
Small town politics meets big city business in this charming novel of different women who vow to form a secret society to solve a mystery. At the end, it’s only through Nora’s connections with other people that help solve the mystery and open herself up to new experiences.
I enjoyed the references to books that Nora suggested to her clients, and want to see more of her recommendations to other troubled souls.
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Till next time,
Kathleen