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Wealthy businessman Jay Ruddle is considering donating his extensive collection of North Carolina historical documents to the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, but the competition for the collection is fierce.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.
YES! We are back at Bodie Island Library and I devoured this book in one sitting, I loved all the previous ones in the series and this one didn't disappoint either! 10/10 Ms Gates!
Lucy will freely admit that she is the Grinch of Halloween, the other members of the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library are well and truly into it, so decorations are going up (but no ghosts or ghouls jumping out from under the stairs - thank you!), whilst all this is going on a man called Jay Ruddle (who everyone apart from Lucy seems to have heard of!) arrives to have a chat with the library head, he also has along with him his granddaughter and the curator of his collections. Apparently he wants to leave his collection to a local library, and the two contenders are the Bodie Island and a University History Department but before he can sign things over (although he had given verbal indications that Bodie Island was the front runner) he is found dead in the rare books room!
Lucy now needs to decide if her intuition about Julia (the granddaughter) is correct, try to rein in Teddy (who is lovestruck), figure out what is happening with Conner (her boyfriend who is running for Mayor again but his rival is claiming that another death at the library means it should be closed and the money spent elsewhere!), oh and figure out why she can suddenly see ghost horses!
An Interview with a Character
What is your full name?
Lucy Richardson
What is your Profession?
I am a librarian, assistant librarian at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library near Nags Head, North
Carolina.
What is your current favourite book or movie?
Right now I’m enjoying Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road by Kate Harris. It’s a non-fiction
about two Canadian women who cycled the legendary Silk Road. For fiction, I loved The Bathwater
Conspiracy by Janet Kellough, which is a blend of speculative fiction and police procedural.
What is your go to comfort book or movie?
I have recently re-read The Merlin books by Mary Stewart, starting with The Crystal Cave. I loved them
as much as I remembered! At the library, we have a classic novel reading club, and our most recent
selection was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. That got us in the mood for Halloween,
as is related in The Spook in the Stacks.
If someone was to play you in a movie who would it be? OR what would be the character you would
want to be in a book?
I’d love to be a Mary Stewart or Barbara Michaels heroine. Sipping a cocktail on a patio in Paris when a
strange man rushes up, pulling me into adventure and romance. But mostly, I’m pretty happy just being
me. Lucy the librarian in the Lighthouse Library mysteries. Although I do wish people would stop being
murdered in the library.
What is your ideal evening?
Dinner with my boyfriend at Jake’s Seafood Bar in Nags Head on a summer evening , watching the sun
set over Roanoke Sound, and eating shrimp and grits. Followed by a moonlight walk on the beach.
Perfect.
Perfect! Thanks for being part of this tour!!!
Posted by: LORI CASWELL | 06/22/2018 at 04:53 PM
Thank you for being part of the book tour for "The Spook in the Stack" by Eva Gates. I enjoyed the interview with Lucy Richardson. LOVE this cover, adore this author and would love the opportunity to read this book.
Posted by: Kay Garrett | 06/24/2018 at 02:47 PM