Life couldn't be sweeter for librarian Lucy Richardson and her fiancé, Connor McNeil, the mayor of Nags Head on North Carolina's Outer Banks, in Gates's breezy ninth Lighthouse Library mystery (after 2021's Deadly Ever After). After a winter renovating their historic beach cottage, the couple have moved into their new home. Even rumors that the cottage is haunted don't disturb Lucy. By coincidence, Lucy's library book club is reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's eerie The House of the Seven Gables when Lucy hears odd noises her first night alone in the cottage. Gossip about how one of the cottage's last residents fled the house screaming about a ghost doesn't help ease Lucy's fears. Neither does the dead body Lucy and Connor find splayed on their kitchen floor. What drew the dead man to their cottage, and why are other unsavory characters suddenly interested in a house that sat empty for decades? Lucy must solve her own haunted house mystery if she and Connor are to live happily ever after. Sprightly prose matches distinctive characterizations. Cozy readers will enjoy spending time with book lover Lucy and her friends. Agent: Kimberly Lionetti, BookEnds Literary. (June)

Lucy Richardson, the librarian at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, is engaged to marry Connor McNeil. After moving into their new home, Lucy initially believes she hears strange noises and finds footprints in the sand, but because the house has a reputation for being haunted, she convinces herself to ignore them. The pair cannot, however, ignore the dead body they find in the kitchen a few days later. Lucy and Connor have to get to the bottom of how the body came to be there and who it was before they can proceed with repairs and wedding preparations. Longtime residents of the island come together and new relationships emerge while Lucy and her friends work to unravel the mysteries of the house. Read by experienced narrator Elise Arsenault, the characters come alive. Arsenault is familiar with Lucy and Connor, as she has narrated all eight previous audiobooks in the "Lighthouse Library Mystery" series from Gates (Deadly Ever After). VERDICT Recommended for those who enjoy light mysteries and beach reads.--Cheryl Youse

An engaged North Carolina couple restore an old house reputed to be haunted. Librarian Lucy Richardson and her fiance, Nags Head mayor Connor McNeil, have purchased the house of their dreams. The historic beach cottage needs a lot of work, but handy Connor and his father, Fred, a retired carpenter, have fixed it up enough to move in. All is going swimmingly until Lucy and Charles, the library cat who lives with her, start hearing strange noises while Connor's out of town. The house was originally built by an old Outer Banks family whose fortunes have fallen. Fisherman Ralph Harper hasn't lived there for many years; his sister, Joanna, scared out of the house as a teen, has never set foot in it again. As the noises continue, Connor shows Lucy a set of drop-down stairs in the pantry leading to the unfinished attic, a space containing some seemingly worthless Harper family junk and footprints in the dust. Despite changing all the locks, the couple finds a man dead in their kitchen, strangled with Charles' leash. He's identified as Ralph's twin, Jimmy Harper, a low-level criminal who's been out of sight for years. A concealed panel in the pantry floor explains how he got in, but what was he looking for? Tales of a hidden treasure drive Lucy, who has plenty of experience in solving murders, to look to the past to solve Jimmy's death. Fans of mystery and romance will enjoy Lucy, her quirky friends, and plenty of red herrings. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.