The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore

In The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore coming out in April, Sloane Parker is a librarian in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. She decides she will engage  crotchety old Arthur McLachlan when he makes his daily visits to the library. His personality is oft putting, he scares most of the staff at the library, and he does not mind hurling unpleasant comments to Sloane or anyone else. After months of this daily taunting and teasing of Sloane, Arthur fails to visit the library.

Day after day, Arthur is a no-show, and Sloane’s anxiety increases until she decides to find Arthur at home--against the library’s rules—to learn what has happened to the old book lover. Turns out, Arthur has had some kind of health episode and is bedridden. Sloane is relieved to track him down, and in his own way, Arthur is actually pleased to see her.

Arthur is antagonized by how his body has failed him, and he shuns everybody’s help until Sloane worms her way into his life full time as she has been fired from the library for violating the rules in seeking out a patron’s home. Arthur and Sloane pretend she is just there every day to catalog his personal collection of books, which allows him to maintain his dignity while he is on the mend.

Through the guise of starting a bedside  book club, Sloane brings others into lonely Arthur’s life, including his long-lost grandson Greg, his neighbor Maisey, fellow librarian Mateo, and a former colleague of Arthur’s, Nigel. This motley crew learns much about each other through the very books they study: The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro), The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan), and Anne of Green Gables, (L.M. Montgomery).

This author writes under three pen names: Lucy Gilmore pens uplifting comedies, Tamara Berry composes cozy mysteries, and Tamara Morgan is a romance writer. She lives in Spokane, Washington, with her family.