Coram House by Bailey Seybolt

May 28, 2025

Coram House by Bailey Seybolt

Coram House was an orphanage run by nuns, closed down after decades of abuse were uncovered. Alex Kelley is a struggling writer who has accepted a job to ghostwrite a true crime book about the orphanage and the children who lived there. She is hoping the book will restart her career and that the income will help her get back on her feet. The only real downside that she can see is having to move to Vermont in January. But when she starts researching the story, she discovers a very different tale than she was expecting.

Inspired by a true story (St. Joseph's Orphanage in Vermont) and a pretty quick read. Highly atmospheric from the creepy orphanage complete with graveyard that an entrepreneur is redoing as luxury housing (I mean, seriously??) to the shifty locals to the dark Vermont winter. Good plotting that makes you wonder who the real monster is. The main character was the drawback for me - she is all kinds of stupid. Of course, if she acted like a rational person, there wouldn't be a novel ("oh, sure, I'll come alone out to your isolated house and not tell anyone where I'm going, even though you've already threatened me with bodily harm and are suspected of killing at least one person."). I do prefer my main characters a little brighter, although some readers will appreciate her imperfections. Themes include the downside of true crime writing, child abuse, pedophilia in the church, blackmail, and murder, so be warned if these subjects are triggers for you.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

St. Joseph's Orphanage, Burlington, VT

The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino

January 22, 2020

The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino

After committing a robbery and having their getaway car break down, three amateur criminals hide out in an abandoned general store. To their surprise, envelopes begin dropping through the mail slot, most of them stating a problem and requesting advice, but some thanking the store owner for advice given in the past.  The three wannabe crooks decide to answer the letters, first as a joke, and then in an earnest attempt to actually be of some help.

The plot (if you can call it a plot) focuses on an old fashioned general store that has been closed for decades, and a nearby orphanage that all of the characters are connected to in some way.  The store exists in a kind of time warp – inside the store, it’s 30 years in the past, while time outside the store runs normally.  Rather than a straightforward novel format, the story consists of a series of inter-connected vignettes, often transitioning to another character's story with little or no explanation.  It’s a quick read and overall optimistic with a certain charm, but a lot of it felt like the author wanted to write about some of his favorite things, like the Beatles.  One of my complaints is that there is no real ending – the reader ends up with the three guys sitting around the general store looking at each other with their eyes twinkling – what is that supposed to mean?  I understand that the author is a well-known mystery writer in Japan, and that this is his first effort outside the mystery genre.  Maybe it was the translation that made it seem clunky.