After a difficult divorce, Jenny Weston returns home to Bear Falls, MI, but she's horrified that someone has destroyed her mother's little library, built by her late father. Jenny meets her mother's new neighbor, a little person, Zoe Zola, standing over the wreckage. An admirer of Lewis Carroll and a fantasy author, Zoe suspects local curmudgeon Adam Cane, but when he is found dead in her backyard, all eyes fall on her. Zoe and Jenny team up to bring the real offender to justice. Fans of Carroll will delight in Zoe's flights of fancy, and the northern Michigan setting in all its splendor is a charmer. VERDICT The author of the "Emily Kincaid" mysteries launches an entertaining series with a quirky premise and captivating characters. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Newly divorced Jenny Weston, the heroine of this quirky, clever cozy series launch from Buzzelli (Gift of Evil), returns home to Bear Falls, Mich., where she's horrified to find her mother's beloved lending library box smashed to bits. The miniature replica of Jenny's family's house was made by her father and served as Bear Falls's unofficial library. Things get even stranger when she encounters next-door neighbor Zoe Zola, an eccentric author, whose recent study of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has led her to talk in riddles and literary references. After the body of cantankerous Adam Cane is found in Zoe's yard, she becomes the prime suspect in his murder. To save her new friend, Jenny falls down a rabbit hole of family secrets, small-town prejudice, and her own personal demons that she thought she'd left behind. Jenny can be a little whiny, but it's hard to resist a tale in which one character observes, "Only nice people read books, you know." (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.