Quiet Neighbors

Starred review from February 22, 2016
In this outstanding standalone from Edgar-finalist McPherson (The Child Garden), Lowell Glen’s house cum bookstore, Lowland Glen Books, in Wigtown, Scotland, becomes a haven first for Jude, a librarian who has run away from her personal problems in London; and then for pregnant 19-year-old Eddy Preston, who shows up from Ireland and claims that Lowell is her dad from a casual affair. Nosy, dotty Marion Hewston, who lives in the bungalow at the bottom of Lowell’s garden, tells of the period 20 years earlier when Lowell kept an open house for frequent visitors, as background to her version of Eddy’s birth. Meanwhile, Jude moves into the cottage of the late Todd Jolly, whose library contains books with insightful jottings hinting at a darker mystery and suspicious deaths in Wigtown’s past. Jude’s probing questions lead to threats, then actions that will change all their lives. McPherson’s literary observations are delightful, her quirky collection of characters intriguing, and the unfolding mystery highly satisfying. Agent: Lisa Moylett, Coombs Moylett Literary Agency.

Starred review from February 15, 2016
A desperate woman flees London for refuge in a quiet Scottish village. Jude Hamner has fond memories of Lowland Glen Books from a holiday she took with her husband just before he left her. Distraught after the deaths of her parents in a freak accident, she books a ticket for Scotland and arrives with only the clothes she was wearing at the funeral. Middle-aged bookseller Lowland "Lowell" Glen comforts Jude when she returns to his shop in tears. He kindly offers her refuge at his home and a job cataloging the books stuffed higgledy-piggledy all over the store. Like the owner, the house is dusty and in need of a strong hand. Slowly Jude settles into her job until a young and very pregnant Eddy Preston turns up claiming that Lowell is her father, the product of a long-ago summer when the younger, wilder Lowell hosted an ever changing group of hippies. Jude is skeptical of her claim and wonders if she's even pregnant, so when Eddy asks for the use of the rooms Jude had cleaned and refurnished, Lowell offers Jude the use of a cottage he owns next to the church graveyard. Jude's interest in the cottage's former owner is piqued by the often cryptic comments he wrote in the books he read before he died. Against all odds, Jude and Eddy develop a friendship, and, although she still doubts the pregnancy, Jude begins to form an alliance with the girl. A threatening note sends Jude running back to the safety of Lowell's house, and that's where she's temporarily staying when someone sets fire to her cottage. In Lowell's home, Jude encounters layer upon layer of deception connecting Lowell's physician father, the deaths of a number of elderly patients, a mysterious collection of photographs, and the enigma of Eddy's birth. At the same time, she must also deal with a crisis in her life as she comes to terms with her own guilt and reveals the true reason for her flight. Although softer-edged and less terrifying than most of McPherson's stand-alones (Come to Harm, 2015, etc.), the slow unraveling of several deeply puzzling circumstances and the complex characters provide a fine read.

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Starred review from April 1, 2016

Jemimah, better known as Jude, has fled London, returning to a small Scottish town where she had discovered Lowland Glen Books during a summer vacation with her husband. Having been abandoned by her spouse for another woman, Jude desperately seeks isolation to repair her broken heart. Lowell Glen, the owner of the bookstore and many other properties in Wigtown, offers Jude a job cataloging and organizing the shop, as well as a house, the tiny grave digger's cottage near the old-town cemetery. Jude is easily drawn into village life, although residents ask few questions. When Lowell's purported daughter turns up pregnant, things begin to unravel, causing Jude's secrets and the shopkeeper's past to collide. VERDICT McPherson is a master of slightly creepy narratives that are complex and character driven (Agatha Award-nominated The Child Garden). Her latest stand-alone is atmospheric and suspenseful and will intrigue Erin Hart readers.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2016
Taking a train out of London, Jude heads for the last place she was happy: Lowland Glen, a bookstore she had visited with her husband the summer before. Eventually, she arrives in Wigtown, in the west of Scotland, and walks into the bookstore. Lowell Glen, the shopkeeper, remembers her and takes her in, no explanations about her past needed. She is a librarian, and the store's stock needs organizing, so she stays, taking over an upstairs room in his house. A day later, raven-haired teen Eddy shows up at Lowland Glen, claiming to be Lowell's daughter. Jude moves to the Kirk Cottage, last occupied by Todd Jolly, whose books she had been sorting. Following a grilling by the busybody neighbor, Jude comments to Eddy that Wigtown doesn't seem like a place one can keep secrets. As Eddy's story unravels, as Jude's past edges in, and as notes in Jolly's books about the tombstones in a nearby graveyard indict the living, Jude learns how many secrets have been kept. Despite the dark underpinnings, this is also a story of love, family, trust, and forgiveness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)