“Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore” by Matthew J. Sullivan

I started reading Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan with Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore in mind. Let’s just say that I was in for a surprise.

Lydia Smith, a bookseller at Bright Ideas, has a traumatizing past she would like to forget. Joey Molina, one of the lost and lonely souls that meanders through the bookstore on a daily basis, is living a traumatizing present. He kills himself, she finds him, it all unravels.