Nail Biter by Sarah Graves

* I read Tool and Die...but I’ve had really bad sleep since then. I know I loved it...but I don’t remember it well enough to review it. On the plus side, this means I can re-read it!


It’s fall in Eastport when Nail Biter opens up and we discover that Jake and Ellie have purchased - and are currently renting out - a fixer-upper in one of the neighboring towns.  It’s not an entirely out-of-character move for our daring duo, as Jacobia likes biting off more than she can chew and Ellie is infinitely capable. But Ellie has a baby, a doozie of a fall storm is on its way, and Jake has...well, her family, her house, and a list of repairs as long as her arm.

So it only makes sense that the story opens with a murder, and then Graves throws a missing person into the mix, as well as her trusty conglomeration of hooligans, ne’er-do-wells, helpful citizens, suspicious strangers, suspicious old acquaintances, weather, leaky plumbing, boats, and pets.

At this stage of the game, it feels like the murders and missing persons are almost the b-plot. I would go so far as to say that they’re really just an excuse for us to catch up on the lives of our favorite fiction Eastportians. I’m also a fixer-upper junkie, so the state of her projects and - ultimately-  her house - are of great interest to me. I sit in my rental and read vicariously about things like new porches and double hung windows and a justification for power tools.

This book - which is set in October - has it’s share of chilling moments and things that make you go hm….it also serves as a gentle reminder that we don’t always know what something means, not everything can be explained, and not everything makes sense.

And that’s all I’m saying because otherwise I’ll spill a whole boatload of spoilers and no one likes that. Luckily, there are 3 more of these before I get to the one that’s coming out in May. Also Luckily - my TBR list never shrinks.