Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia is the perfect book to curl yourself around on a cold, windy winter weekend. If I had the time, I would have read it in one day. As it was, it took me a couple of weeks to read this novel, and I don’t deny that a huge part of the appeal of coming home for lunch, on days I could manage it, was that I would get to unpeel another layer in this fun, creepy, murder mystery/coming-of-age novel.

The year is 1997. Take a pair of musically gifted, high school twins: add in a regional music competition at a crumbling old gothic hotel, a fanatical, crazed conductor, a handful of flawed characters, an impending blizzard, and you’ve got yourself one rollicking good time. The depth of some of the characters and their private agonies and joys surprised me, as did the general snarky tone and the reveal-upon-reveal as the story plays out. Teenaged Rabbit Hatmaker may just be my favorite character of the year, as he faces his inner self and tentatively (and then competently) stretches to come out of the comfortable little shell in which he has lived in his sister Alice's shadow.

The book starts out with gusto: fifteen years into the past, a young girl attending a wedding at the hotel wanders off and accidentally chances upon a fresh murder scene in Room 712 – a new bride has shot her husband and then hung herself. Strap yourself into a seatbelt as this story takes off from a variety of angles and then manages to (mostly) wrap up the loose ends. You'll enjoy the late 90s references from the novel's setting, and you'll also wonder when Racculia’s next book is coming out.