Category Archives: Solved

341W: Deadly sociopathic woman obsessed with her imaginary son resorts to multiple murder (Solved!)

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Looking for title and author for newish book, British, contemporary suspense…

Plot highlights: main character is a disturbed divorced woman obsessed with her imaginary child (male). She joins other mothers as they bring or pickup children at the beginning and end of the school day. She deflects not having a child join her at dismissal by saying he must be staying late with teacher and enters school; other mothers leave. She joins mothers in coffee shop most mornings.

This scenario repeats until she meets man at the coffee shop and they strike up a relationship. He is a con artist who befriends lonely women to debunk them and is originally drawn to our main character for this reason. They quickly form a sexual relationship but he remains a bit mysterious and leaves everyday for his ‘secret’ life, to keep pursuing other female victims, one of whom commits suicide and he plays the role of sympathetic suitor/victim to pursue the dead woman’s sister. The main character (Jane?) is suspicious and follows him misinterpreting his relationship with the mystery woman who is now blackmailing him. Main character is successful at sexually manipulating this man, however, and she convinces him they must kill the “son’s” teacher before she reveals main character’s deception…Main character suspects boyfriend of betraying her and starts to slowly poison him. After moving to another school district, Main character is recognized by former mothers group member whom she stalks and kills…

341R: Boy in future accidentally falls down garbage chute? (Solved!)

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I am looking for a juvenile fiction book, written sometime in the 1980s. The premise is that people of privilege live indoors and never see the sun; the main character is a very haughty, arrogant teenager who lives indoors. A big deal is made about how pale and fat these people are. Somehow he accidentally ends up outside — I feel like he falls down a garbage chute — and ends up finding a village of families who live outside. After a while, he loses his arrogance and begins to enjoy his life outdoors. Eventually he makes his way back to his home, and I distinctly remember people shunning him because he has gotten muscles and a tan. I read it in the fifth or sixth grade, so it would have been aimed at children ages 10-12 or so.

The cover of the book shows the back of a pale bald boy, dressed in robes (they may be purple or blue?), running down a hallway. Thanks for the help!

341L: Little girl’s doll makeover at her father’s Doll Hospital (Solved!)

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Looking for a child's fiction/picture book circa 1950's-1960's, maybe even 1940's -Hardcover - Colored pictures drawn like doll wigs of different colors, new clothes in tissue paper, clothes accessories, etc. Pictures are not 'cartoony'; more true to life.

Story: Little girl has been asking her father to fix her doll but he has been too busy at his shop. Finally, on the little girl's birthday, he closes his doll hospital early and dedicates the rest of the day to fixing up her beloved doll with new eyes, face and clothes that she gets to pick out all by herself.

340O: Incredible Sunday? (Solved!)

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This is a YA book from, I believe, the 80s. It’s about a preteen (named Sunday or Sundae) whose mother gets her an agent, so she can audition for TV commercials. I remember that her signature look is a French braid or two braids? She has some difficult auditions including one for peanut butter where she has to do a cartwheel,  and the directors loudly discuss how awkward she is in front of all the other girls. She eventually makes a friend who is a young actress who is obsessed with Virginia Woolf’s suicide,  and eventually she finds the friend by the ocean wearing a raincoat stuffed with rocks contemplating suicide. I think the book was called Incredible Sunday, but I haven’t been able to find it under that name.
Thanks so much!

340I: Girl Wakes Up Inside Dollhouse (Solved!)

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I read this book in 1995 from a middle school book fair. It was a children’s/young adult book. The cover had an evil doll with brown hair and looked like the doll was bursting through the cover. I remember the main character was a girl probably 10-12 years old. There was something about a dollhouse and waking up inside the dollhouse. Maybe she and her family had just moved to a new house? There was a part where the main character begins to realize she is inside the dollhouse because she finds a wide tooth comb and describes it as very large like someone would use if they had dreadlocks. Why I specifically remember that, no idea. I managed to lose the book over the years but it was a nostalgic favorite of mine. Hopefully you can help.

340E: Girl moves to beach town (Solved!)

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It's a book about a teenage girl who meets an anonymous boy online. They become close and she happens to move to where he lives without telling him. She moves to the beach town with her dad (I think her mom died and was a surfer). She starts working at a museum with a boy she doesn't like but things start to click and she begins to wonder if he's the mystery online boy. She had never told him that she moved to his hometown. She wanted to figure out who he was before revealing herself.

339N: Who is the author? Begins with Stephen…not King or Crane (Solved!)

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I am recalling an early short story writer, from the 1930s and 1940s, he wasn’t known as a science fiction author but wrote a piece of science fiction about a take over of the world by machines. They weren’t AI or anything that sophisticated. No microprocessors. The takeover included automobiles and even irons and vacuum cleaners. The machines just revolted. I think that the story was told by a person in an enclosed room waiting to die, telling his tale. The writer’s first name was Stephen. My parents had a copy of “The Complete Works of Stephen….” or “The Collected Works of Stephen….” but I can’t remember his last name. Does anyone who it might be? I believe he also wrote some poetry included in the set.  I think there were two volumes.

339J: Children’s fantasy from 60s/70s with invisible magician/wizard/enchanter (Solved!)

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I borrowed this book from the library, probably during the 1970s, but it may have been published earlier. My vague memories include: two children, probably a boy and a girl, had magical adventures. There was a friendly witch or female magician and a good but scary male magician who was always invisible. This may have been by choice, and there was a backstory of a romantic relationship with the witch. One of the children was transported by the invisible magician and found it rather frightening but eventually trusted the magician. This was not the main plot!

The book was almost certainly British and would have been a chapter book (not a term used at that time).

Thank you!

338O: Girl searches for spinet-playing doll (Solved!)

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I’m looking for a book that was written probably in the 1960’s, possibly early 1970’s.  I think the title contained the words “secret friends”. It is about a girl and her best friend who stumble across a mystery involving 2, or maybe 3, mechanical dolls. Her father owns an antique store. He has one of the dolls, a girl sitting at a desk who dips a pen in an inkwell and writes. The other is a girl playing the spinet. I remember the clue to the mystery was found inside the doll.