Serious Moonlight

May 20, 2019
Set in Seattle, this romantic mystery stars 18-year-old Birdie Lindberg, a homeschooled teen with narcolepsy. Birdie is great at solving mysteries, except when it comes to matters of her own heart. She’s spent the last month trying to avoid Daniel Aoki, with whom she had her first (and very awkward) sexual encounter. She’s successful, until she begins working the graveyard shift at the historic Cascadia Hotel, where Daniel drives the hotel van. He wants to rehash what happened between them; Birdie just wants to forget. Still, she can’t resist his invitation to help solve an intriguing puzzle about a local author who takes great pains to hide his identity in weekly visits to the hotel, and their sleuthing takes them all over the city. At the same time, Birdie tries to sort out her growing attraction to Daniel and control her increasingly erratic sleep patterns. The startling, somewhat contrived solution to the mystery leads into resolutions of Birdie’s internal dilemmas perhaps too neatly. But Bennett (Starry Eyes) creates a cast of vibrant supporting characters, including Birdie’s eccentric-artist mentor Aunt Mona and Daniel’s mother, a former magician’s assistant, and offers vivid descriptions of Seattle’s landmarks along with nonstop suspense. Ages 14–up.