REVIEW: By Book or By Crook

By Book or By Crook
Author: Eva Gates

Lucy leaves her Harvard Library job, her family, and her ex-fiance behind in Boston and moves to the coast of NC to take a librarian position in a small town library. She loves the Outer Banks, the library and her apartment in a refurbished lighthouse. She arrives as a set of Jane Austen first editions arrives for display at the Bodie Lighthouse Library. Just as the events showcasing the priceless books begin, the president of the library board is murdered in the lighthouse and the loaned Austen books start disappearing one by one.  Lucy finds herself a suspect in the thefts and her boss the primary suspect in the killing. She knows she needs to investigate to clear her name and protect her boss and the library from harm.

By  Book or By Crook is the first book in the Lighthouse Library Mystery series. There are four books in total so far.

While I truly love the idea of a library in a lighthouse (especially a lighthouse in NC where I live...I love the OBX area!), I have a slight problem with this series, even before I started reading). Bodie Lighthouse is an actual lighthouse located near Nag's Head on the Outer Banks of NC. I've been there -- love it! It is black and white, as depicted in the book. BUT.....Bodie Lighthouse is only big enough for the spiraling stairs that wind their way to the top observation platform. There is not room for an apartment....a library....not even a broom closet. While the author does explain that she took liberties with the site for her story, I think it would have been better to create a fictional lighthouse in the same region, rather than use an actual site and change it so fundamentally. There is the former caretaker's house nearby that is a giftshop/museum that might have been used as the library location if Bodie Lighthouse had to be the specific site. I just couldn't get all the way into the story because the location was so fundamentally off from it's real design. Very cool idea.....I just wasn't too happy they took one of my favorite places and changed it that much.

The general story and mystery were ok....I enjoyed the characters and the storyline. The ending was a bit lackluster for me, but not annoyingly so. There was some melodramatic dialogue that had me rolling my eyes a bit a few times....but cozies with touches of romance here and there tend to get a bit Lifetime Channel-esque at times.

I listened to the audio book version of this story. Elise Arsenault narrated. I was a bit disappointed with her performance for several reasons.  Her attempt at North Carolina or southern accents for the characters was terrible.....completely wrong. And at one point she attempted a Scottish accent for some side characters visiting the library. Also terrible. Her reading pace and voice in general was good, but her NC characters came off sounding like a mix of Louisiana and Texas. lol. Someone who doesn't live in NC wouldn't know, but it pulled me completely out of the story. First Bodie Lighthouse is 10 times it's real size.....and then atrocious southern accents. lol.   I just had a rough time with this book. I am going to finish the series....I like reading books set here in NC. And Eva Gates is a pen-name used by Vicki Delaney. I have enjoyed other books by her, so I'm going to give this series time to grow on me.

Just reading about OBX makes me want to drive to Nag's Head! The pier, the dolphins, the lighthouse! :) Love it!