Looking For a Good Book

When Abigail moves to Soap Lake, Washington with her husband for his new job, she imagines it will be a mini version of Seattle, with craft beers on tap, super friendly neighbors, and a tourist gimmick (in this case, the world’s largest lava lamp). But when, just after moving, her husband is sent to Poland on a research trip, Abigail experiences a Soap Lake that most who’ve spent their entire lives in town would never anticipate.

Out of the desert that abuts the town runs a young boy, straight into Abigail’s arms. The boy’s mother, Esme, has only recently returned home to Soap Lake, and has been murdered. Abigail enlists a few locals to help her look into this – not surprisingly, those willing to work with the new person in town are a bit ‘off’ themselves.

What Abigail discovers is that Soap Lake has a few skeletons in its history. Esme’s is not the first murder in the area and this history goes back aways and conceals an even bigger civil matter.

My ARC for this was an audio book, narrated by Kristen Sieh. While I listen to a lot of audio books, I receive very few audio book ARCs, so this was quite welcomed. I quite enjoyed Kristen Sieh’s narration – she brought a sense of wonder and curiosity to the story and listening to her made Abigail just a little more human.

I’m not quite sure what to make of the story. Advertising for the book compares it to Twin Peaks and I’d say, yes, this is like Twin Peaks, without the clarity.

I got quite involved in the story early on. The introduction of Abigail and the town and the set-up to the story with the appearance of the boy were quite attention-grabbing. the town, most definitely a character by itself. was something i really wanted to know more about. I wasn’t sure if this (the town) was going to be a living element that somehow possessed the residents, or if the story would take some paranormal turn. I knew nothing and that made it all the more interesting.

However, I actually got bored about a third of the way in, and while my attention was restored near the end of the book, I wasn’t nearly as invested in the story as I would have liked. We got just a little bit too caught up explaining things we didn’t need explained (the scientific elements). It also felt like we didn’t know if this was going supernatural (TreeTop) or not – which didn’t make it interesting – it made it muddled.

Mostly I was left uninspired, which is disappointing.

Looking for a good book? Midnight in Soap Lake by Matthew Sullivan takes a very ordinary woman and puts her into an extraordinary town and has her investigating some things the town would like to have left unexamined.

I received an audio copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Midnight in Soap Lake

author: Matthew Sullivan

audio narrator: Kristen Sieh

publisher: Hanover Square Press

ISBN: 9781335041791

hardcover, 416 pages