A Beautiful Mystery - has anyone read it?(spoiler)

[charminglife]

I finished it last night and want to discuss!

[charlatti]

Me me me! My library had my copy the day it was released (yay library!) so I finished it last week. I really liked this one -- for me it was comparable to Bury Your Dead, which has been my favorite.

[charminglife]

About 2/3s of the way through I stopped caring about the dead monk and I wanted to see what she was going to do with Armand/Jean-Guy's relationship which is totally the heart of these books. I love the political backstory that she's woven into her previous books and was happy to see it more out into the open in this book - I find it fascinating and heartbreaking.

I was crying by the end with the standoff in the chapel and I never cry at books. I cant believe Jean-Guy went with Francouer, and his thoughts in the plane about leaving the chocolates that he saved for Annie behind, but that it didn't matter anymore - ugh. I don't know what Penny is going to do with Armand/Jean-Guy moving forward, but I hope they repair their relationship.

[charlatti]

I'm pretty confident/hopeful that she'll get everyone back together in the next book. There's no way Gamache wouldn't forgive Jean Guy, so it's just a matter of Jean Guy forgiving himself. Annie might not be as forgiving. I'm expecting some kind of huge breakdown that ends the standoff with the Surete higher-ups and puts JG and Gamache back on the same side. She better not make me wait more than the next book for that!

I loved that this book was pretty much just the two of them. I kept expecting some Three Pines character to show up, but it was such a perfect setting for the two characters to hit that boiling point.