Bøger af Anne Riley

So, you and I are having coffee in a little café off the main street in town. The conversation meanders as it always does between friends. We talk about our kids and our jobs and our husbands. And somewhere in one of those lulls of companionable silence, I spill a secret that I have kept hidden for the longest time. I have been unhappy my whole life, I tell you. You stop, and I can feel your discomfort. I can see you don't know what to say. Don't worry, I shrug. I've seen this reaction before. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, I explain. It's not like I lived a life of complete misery. Nothing so dramatic. I have had plenty of happy moments. But fundamentally, beneath the surface, in the core where I live, I was... lost, unsure, insecure... in a word, unhappy. I see surprise on your face. No way, you say. I don't believe you. You seem so happy now. So together. And then I smile. Yes, I am happy. Now. But it took me fifty years to figure it out. And now, it's the funniest thing. For years, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't be happy. Now, it's just the opposite. Now, I can't seem to be unhappy, even when bad things happen in my life. You shake your head as if you are not sure you can believe me. But then, you think back and see that I do seem to always be in sync, to roll with the challenges that I encounter and stay balanced. What happened, you finally ask. What changed? Everything, I say. It turns out I have been learning about happiness my whole life. I sit back and sip my coffee. Happiness, I tell you, was an elusive little sucker....

Welcome to Wonderland, Alabama, where residents embrace their obvious connection to the Lewis Carroll classic with kitschy restaurants and tourist shops. Every year, on the last night of September, the town excitedly gathers at Wonderland Public Library for the Tumbledown Eve party. It's a jovial night that officially kicks off the five-day Tumbledown Festival, a celebration of Alice in Wonderland that brings in Alice fans from all over the Southeast. At this year's party, library director Emerson Bloom is pretty proud of her Caterpillar costume and her signature cocktail, a rum-spiked Mad Hatter's Brew. She is confident it will be a celebratory festival year, as always. But when one of her party guests is found axed to death in the Impossibilities Room, Emerson realizes that someone in their tight-knit community is a killer and no one is above suspicion. Unfortunately, that includes Emerson's beloved mentor and friend, Mrs. Larson, who bizarrely confesses to the crime and sends the whole town tumbling down a rabbit hole of suspicion and unease.On the surface, Mrs. Larsen's confession seems to hold water - until a white rabbit leads Emerson through the rose bushes to the Larsens' property, where she encounters a much more likely suspect. As threatening notes arrive at the library and another citizen is attacked, Emerson feels certain that Mrs. Larsen can't be guilty. But proving her friend's innocence will require peering through the looking glass into the past, where secrets swirl thick and the impossible becomes reality.