THE GOOD BYLINE

For a small-town girl in over her head, finding love is hard enough without having to find a murderer.

The people in Tuttle Corner, Virginia, think Riley Ellison might as well change her name to Riley Bless-Her-Heart now that her longtime boyfriend has run off to have a mid-20s crisis. Riley always thought she and “That Sanford Boy,” aka Ryan Sanford, had a bright future together. That’s why she put off all her own needs during the seven years they dated and concentrated on being a “we” instead of a “me.” Left alone in the wake of Ryan’s nonconsideration, Riley’s stuck at a dead-end library job with no prospects except for her mother’s insistence she join Click.com, a highly personalized dating website. With nothing left to lose, Riley enrolls in the service but is distracted before she can go on her first date by the news that her childhood friend Jordan James, a reporter at the Tuttle Times, has killed herself. Just as she felt when her grandfather died the same way, Riley’s certain that the cause of death is murder and not suicide. Riley tries to investigate, but everyone in town seems too busy pitying her to cooperate—except for Jordan’s colleague Will Holman, who may be too weird to be helpful. Worse still, Ryan returns to town, and everyone knows Riley will get her heart broken again except for Riley, bless her heart.

Though not every line rings true, Orr is #soclose with her debut mystery, with interspersed emails from Click.com’s Personal Romance Concierge as the #cherryontop.