New library mystery and character interview: Spook in the Stacks by Eva Gates

Halloween in North Carolina’s Outer Banks becomes seriously tricky when librarian Lucy Richardson stumbles across something extra unusual in the rare books section: a dead body.

Wealthy businessman Jay Ruddle is considering donating his extensive collection of North Carolina historical documents to the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, but the competition for the collection is fierce. Unfortunately, while the library is hosting a lecture on ghostly legends, Jay becomes one of the dearly departed in the rare books section. Now, it’s up to Lucy Richardson and her fellow librarians to bone up on their detective skills and discover who is responsible for this wicked Halloween homicide.
Meanwhile, very strange things are happening at the library―haunted horses are materializing in the marsh, the lights seem to have an eerie life of their own, and the tiny crew of a model ship appears to move around when no one is watching. Is Lucy at her wit’s end? Or can it be that the Bodie Island Lighthouse really is haunted?
With The Legend of Sleepy Hollow on everyone’s minds and ghoulish gossip on everyone’s lips, Lucy will need to separate the clues from the boos if she wants to crack this case without losing her head in The Spook in the Stacks, the delightful fourth in national bestseller Eva Gates’ Lighthouse Library mysteries.

Character Interview

Lucy Richardson from the Lighthouse Library series

Lucy, welcome to Island Confidential! Can you tell our readers a little bit about yourself?
First, thank you so much for talking to me. I’m Lucy Richardson, and my life is pretty much an open book. I am the new librarian at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library. I love being a librarian, I love working at the Lighthouse Library, and I love living in my favourite place on earth: The Outer Banks of North Carolina. I even have a burgeoning relationship with a new boy friend, (he he). So right now life’s pretty much perfect. Although, and here’s what readers might not know about me, Halloween is approaching, and I am the Grinch of Halloween.
In fairness to you, Halloween in the Outer Banks sounds pretty harrowing what with the hauntings and murders and all. Is there anyone who’s there for you when things get to be too much?
That’s easy. I adore my cousin Josie O’Malley. What’s not to love: Josie is kind and smart and incredibly hard working. She owns Josie’s Cozy Bakery in town, which is rapidly becoming THE place in Nags Head for coffee and pastries. She’s also model thin and beautiful, despite being a baker (who ever said life is fair: Not me). Plus, we’ve been best friends from childhood when my family would visit her family for summers on the Outer Banks.
Everyone has someone they don’t get along with. Is there anyone who doesn’t light up your life like Josie does?
I have to say, it’s Louise Jane. Nothing I can do can make Louise Jane like me. She wants my job, she wants me out of town. She tries her best to frighten me off with her tales of hauntings of the Lighthouse, but so far it’s not working. Although, with Halloween approaching, I can’t help wondering what she’s up to.
Just between you and me: What do you really think of your author?
She’s marvellous! I love her to bits. Although, I suppose sometimes she could be a bit gentler on me. I mean, I hate Halloween. So do we have to make a big deal of it at the library AND be reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at the same time? BTW, some of your readers might not know that she is also Vicki Delany, author of the Year Round Christmas books and the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mysteries.
What’s next for you?
For me, wedding bells are in the air. Oh, I don’t mean me, as in the bride. But my cousin Josie is getting married in Something Read, Something Dead, Lighthouse Library Book 5, and I’m the maid of honour. I just hope Josie’s interfering relatives don’t spoil her special day. As for Eva/Vicki, my author, she has the fourth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery, A Scandal in Scarlet, coming in November.

About the Author

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than twenty-five books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing three cozy mystery series: the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane, the Year Round Christmas mysteries for Penguin Random House and, under the pen name of Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series, for Crooked Lane Books.

Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario. She is the past president of the Crime Writers of Canada. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards.

Visit Vicki at www.vickidelany.com. On Facebook at www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor. Twitter @vickidelany @evagatesauthor

Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Google Play | BookBub