Who here loves book clubs? I don’t know about you, but I adore a good book club. I love book clubs whether I love or hate the book. I think there’s just something about discussing books with others who have read it and love books just like I do that appeals to my soul. Add in your favorite snacks and beverages and it’s a respite from the world.
I am so new to my home and my town (having recently relocated from the Seattle area to the Sioux Falls area) that I don’t have an in person book club. I haven’t found anything online yet, either. What with one thing and another (all that work, work, work), I haven’t been in a book club in quite some time.
So, when I saw a book club themed book subscription box, it caught my eye. ‘The Busybody Book Club‘ was the prize. I can’t give spoilers on the swag, though! This was the June Adult selection from Once Upon a Book Club if that would interest you. I enjoyed finding my cues at different page points in the book to open my little themed gifts.
[Don’t get me started on subscription boxes. That’s another whole post by itself. I love them.]
This is a cozy mystery from Freya Sampson, who writes with themes of found family. It centers around the five members of a book club in a small Cornish town. Nova is new on staff in the community center and she starts the book club. Arthur is an elderly farmer who loves books, especially romances, because he’s bonded over them with his ailing wife. Ash is a shy teenager who attends because he thinks learning to talk about books will help him get to know a crush. Phyllis is an opinionated Agatha Christie fan with a wheezy bulldog. Michael is an enigma.
When Michael dashes out of a meeting for no apparent reason, and the community center’s roofing fund vanishes, Michael is the prime suspect, but it puts Nova’s job at risk. The book club bands together to get to the root of the mystery, with Phyllis taking the lead. A murder complicates the picture, and it puts Nova deeper into trouble. Can this ragtag group set aside their literary differences and save Nova?
It took a little while to get hooked on this one, but after about 60 pages, I had to know what was going to happen.
The best thing about this book was the characters. I really enjoyed seeing them develop through the book. Each member of the book club learns and grows, not just Nova, who is the main focus until Phyllis steps up to drive a lot of the narrative. I loved that by the end, they each have something they wanted or needed and didn’t entirely appreciate at the beginning. I think that’s a feat for an ensemble cast like this.
As far as the mystery goes, Phyllis channels Miss Marple every chance she gets. That offers some fun references to those mysteries, but I also enjoyed that other genres are referenced as well, by other book club members.
The worse the turns of events got, the more I wanted to know who was really responsible for the crimes. The suspect list is not that long, however, so the focus on the mystery is a little less “who done it” and a little more how and why. I actually like that. I get the satisfaction of guessing right, but still being surprised. In this case, I did narrow the suspects down to two, and it was one of them, but I didn’t figure out the why, so it was still satisfying to get the explanation, which was delivered by Phyllis, Agatha Christie style. Absolutely delicious. There were also some fun twists that I didn’t expect at all. They were bonuses that rounded out the characterization and growth really well.
I highly recommend this read if you love cozy mysteries, books with literary references, quirky found family themes, and well drawn characters.
