Nicole Baart’s Sleeping in Eden is an intriguing mystery that is well-written, complex and multi-layered. Two seemingly unrelated stories simultaneously unfold when skeletal remains are uncovered at the scene of a suicide.
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I found Sleeping in Eden to be the type of book that really pulls you in from page one. Sometime alternate storylines pull me out of a novel, but I would become so engrossed in either Lucas's or Meg's story that I was almost disappointed to have to switch to the other - but excited, too, because I needed to know what was happening and how everything was going to come together. I would recommend Sleeping in Eden to fans of Heather Gudenkauf and Kristin Hannah as I think Nicole Baart's writing style is similar. I would describe it as a complex look at small town life with plenty of engaging moments. ( )

Will not re-read. Uninteresting.

I won Sleeping In Eden in a giveaway. I entered on a whim, since my main reading genres are SciFi and Urban Fantasy and this doesn't fit either category. Even so, I do enjoy the occasional "palate cleanser" novel, so when I saw the description of this novel (first in one of those It's Monday posts, and then in the giveaway post) I decided it would be an interesting novel - and even though it was stated that a body is found in a barn - and hours later, another one is found buried in the floor....I wasn't quite prepared for just how intense this novel ended up.

There is two stories going on - and it's hard to describe without giving anything away.....

A small town doctor is called out to pronounce an apparent suicide dead. This suicide happens to be a rather unlikable character, the owner of a large piece of property and an alcoholic prone to rages....in the midst of checking things out, another body is found under the floorboards of the barn (where the guy hung himself).

The young doctor is having some of his own problems. His wife is just on the edge of leaving him, and he's sort of drifting through his life, barely hanging on but not doing a whole lot to convince her to stay. Seems like every time he tries to do something nice for her she reacts with anger. Her character wasn't a very nice - or rather to me, she came across as a raging woman who wasn't going to make things easy for him. She's gone through something to cause her to feel this intense sadness and rage, but she's taking it out on him, and he seems lost. I was completely frustrated with his and her characters - which is a sign of a good writer. Because I wasn't frustrated with stupid writing and lame characters, but I was frustrated with these incredibly well written characters who are so lost in their suffering. So buried in their own emotions that they don't really see what they're doing to the other, and the wife doesn't really seem to care about anything but her own feelings, just keeps herself distant and punishing to her husband, not letting him in, angry because he's lost and doesn't know what to do, other than to try things to help that just angers her.

There's this other character - who happens to be the daughter of the alcoholic who had committed suicide. And she's been missing for about eight years.... There is some uncomfortable history between her and the doctor, even while the wife has a great love for this young woman, who is either the body under the floorboards, or ....

The other story line has to do with a young woman who falls in love with the new kid in town. As she's growing, her neighbor - her friend's older brother, suddenly decides he's madly in love with her and there's this kind of strange relationship that develops. She's not really that into him, and yet sometimes she is - but it's nothing like the intense feelings she has for this other guy - the new guy in town, who, according to some, isn't quite right for her (i.e. not good enough for her). Now, here is another set of characters that you can't help feeling frustrated with. You want to shake the girl and tell her not to be a fool. You want to grab the new boy and tell him not to waste time.... you want to grab the neighbor boy and tell him.......well. You get the gist of it.

Most of the characters were so flawed, so human in some of the saddest ways, and so human in some of the worst ways, and yet even with their obvious flaws, they all had redeeming qualities.

By the last section of the book, I was so involved with the two stories, and so irritated by a few of the characters, that I was left feeling a little wrung out by it all. And the ironic thing, is that people really are that foolish, to waste time in relationships that aren't equal, to make the other one suffer because you don't feel good about something that happens, to shut out others because you are so engulfed with anger and grief over an event...

Da**, this woman wrote an intense story that can make you either swear to treat your own relationship better or make you want to just get away from everyone because it's just too hard to let people completely in....and that some of these irrational behaviours just hits just a little too close to home.

You should read it. It's at once sad, surprising and yet a little hopeful. ( )

A sleepy rural town in northwest Iowa may sound like an unlikely setting for a murder mystery, but unlikely settings often are the best. When Dr. Lucas Hudson, filling in for the local coroner, is called to the scene of the apparent suicide of a local farmer, he has no idea the circumstances will lead to more complications for his troubled marriage. And as Lucas delves deeper into the murder that is discovered alongside the suicide, he finds himself in conflict with his friend and police chief of the small town of Blackhawk, Alex Kennedy. As he searches to sort out his complicated feelings about his social worker wife and a troubled young woman who disappeared eight years previously, Lucas goes his own way, to the extent of withholding evidence, a tiny gold ring, that he found at the crime scene.
At the same time, a teenage love story from a decade before reveals the dark side to a time of supposed innocence. Meg Painter was caught between her friendships for Dylan Reid, a renegade and outsider in the town, and Jess Langbroek, neighbor and childhood friend. Meg's emotional confusion can only lead to hurt on all sides, until eventually her choices come to light as Lucas follows the clues to identify the murder victim found in the barn.
A haunting story, Sleeping in Eden is a book that illustrates the complexities of human emotions and the pain we all carry into our relationships. Nicole Baart tells the two stories of relationships that have gone off the rails in a sensitive and intricate style, missing nothing. And the questions of guilt and innocence are not answered, but simply questioned, leaving the reader pondering. ( )