The Little Lost Library (Secret, Book, & Scone Society #7)
written by Ellery Adams
narrated by Cris Dukehart
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f
Blurb:
Big clues come in small packages as Miracle Books owner Nora Pennington and the Secret, Book, and Scone Society attempt to solve a series of murders connected to a bibliophile’s missing books in the latest cozy mystery from New York Times bestselling author Ellery Adams . . .When an elderly Miracle Springs resident, Lucille Wynter, arranges for Nora to deliver an order of books to her creepy, crumbling Southern Gothic mansion on the outskirts of town, Nora doesn’t expect to be invited in. An agoraphobe, Lucille doesn’t leave Wynter House. But when Lucille doesn’t come to the door to collect her books, Nora begins to worry.
Forcing her way into Lucille’s dilapidated home, Nora is shocked to find rooms bursting with books and a lifeless Lucille at the foot of her stairs. After reading a note left behind by Lucille, Nora wonders if her death was an accident. Did she fall or was she pushed by someone seeking a valuable item hidden within Wynter House? Lucille’s children are clearly confident the house contains something of value, because they hire Nora to sift through the piles of books.
Nora’s obsession with Lucille’s collection becomes cause for concern among her friends in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society—she’s even neglecting her bookshop! But Nora does find something valuable deep inside Wynter House—a revelation about Lucille’s terrible past . . . and a secret worth a small fortune. But there’s someone who’d do anything to keep the truth buried amid the moldering tomes, and it’s up to Nora and her friends to track down a murderer before Wynter House’s lost library claims another victim . . .
My Review
This was another good book in this series, but personally this might be my least favorite in the series so far. It just felt very sad and heavy throughout the book and I would’ve liked some more cozier scenes and character focused plot lines.
In this book Nora goes to bring a book delivery to an elderly resident that she always visits like this, meeting outside the house in her boot room. This time the lady doesn’t show up and eventually Nora finds her dead at the bottom of the stairs. She left Nora a book with riddles and Nora starts following them to find out were they lead. The book starts right with the scene of Nora meeting Lucille and ends up finding her dead and there was just something very heavy and visceral about that scene and how Nora is too late to save her. I actually had to put the book down and came back later.
The book has an engaging mystery and I liked the scavenger hunt type plot with the book of clues Nora is following. There are multiple suspects and more secrets that come to light throughout the story. And it all was just very sad and lots of tough things all the characters involved had to deal with. I just felt the balance between heavy and cozy scenes in this book was more skewed toward the heavy ones.
It bothered me how Nora kept a secret from McCabe as it related to the investigation. There also are some tough things Nora has to deal with along the way, but I felt these were mostly just sad instead of adding to her character like the last book did. There also is a plot line about a book thief in the bookstore and I liked seeing how this turned out. There aren’t as many scenes with her friends as I had hoped, but these do become more common later in the book and I like reading about these characters. Hester is having some relationship struggles and Estella is handling being pregnant.
To summarize: This was another solid book in the series, but for me personally one of my least favorite ones. The mystery was a good one, but could be very sad and heavy at times. I liked the riddle type scavenger hunt Nora goes on through the house, but didn’t like how she kept this a secret from McCabe. I felt this book could’ve used a bit more cozier scenes and I felt there weren’t as many interesting character related plot lines in this one, but I liked seeing how the book thief plot line played out. It was fun to read about the familiar characters again and this book ends on a more uplifting note.
The dead woman’s kids hiring her to find the valuable something they think is hidden in the house is weird. Why wouldn’t they try to find it themselves instead of trusting someone else to give them the valuable something if they find it.
The book description all describes it a bit weirdly, the dead women’s kids mostly hire a group of people to sort through the house as the women who died was a hoarder and there is a lot of stuff. The main character gets involved as she has some special clues she got from the dead women and she knows one of the people who is sorting through the stuff in the house, so she just goes there and looks for the clues while’s she’s there and helps with some of the books and seeing whether they are valuable.
Sometimes I’m not in the mood for too heavy of a storyline. Sounds like even if it wasn’t your favorite in the series you still enjoyed it pretty well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
https://lisalovesliterature.bookblog.io/2025/05/23/e-galley-review-all-joking-aside-slippery-slopes-2-by-piper-sheldon/