Emma Lord is not a plucky girl with a terrific shoe collection, nor is she a sharp old lady with her knitting. She’s a tough middle-aged reporter who has finally found love, and who approaches her job as editor and publisher of a small town weekly paper with all the grit of hard-bitten city desk editor. If a few bodies turn up every now and then — well, it’s all part of the job. Right now, though, she’d like to be able to turn her attention to her upcoming wedding, get her house in order for its new role as a family home, and spend a little quality time with her husband-to-be.
So she’s not happy when the local radio station keeps scooping her on news from the new mental hospital that’s opening in tiny Alpine, Washington, nor when her House & Home Editor (or Gossip & Advice Columnist) alternates between hissy fits in the office and mysterious disappearances. Add in her fiancee’s troubled daughter, her news reporter’s troubled wife, and a suspicious death by electrocution, and Emma Lord is beginning to feel troubled, too.
The book gets off to a slow start, with much of the initial chapter devoted to catching the reader up on previous events and relationships, but fans of the Alpine series will enjoy the continuing growth of those relationships and the appearances of favorite townspeople. The story is complex and there are some difficult decisions facing the main characters.
The characters, both major and supporting, are quirky yet realistic and three dimensional. The town of Alpine is itself an important character in the story and you’ll be left wondering what happens next in the life of the town.