![](https://i0.wp.com/openbooksociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/book_reviews_banner.png?resize=601%2C146&ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/openbooksociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/4-star.gif?resize=105%2C23&ssl=1)
Title: Too Close to Home
Series: Anna Sweet Mystery
By: Brenda Chapman
ASIN: B07TBBCZ31
Website: http://www.brendachapman.ca
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra
![](https://i0.wp.com/openbooksociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Too-Close-To-Home.jpg?resize=318%2C469&ssl=1)
Summary:
PI Anna Sweet is hired to look out for Max, a troubled teenage runaway. For Max, the woods provide safety and shelter. Until he is discovered. Max’s parents declare him mentally unfit and try to lock him up. But Anna holds the secret to his freedom.
Anna agrees to take on another case, as a favour to Gail, a childhood friend. Gail, who lives overseas, is worried. Gail’s grandmother has strangers living in her home and is not answering her calls. Anna agrees to drop by the house and stumbles across a body. Sometimes, favours can go horribly wrong. Anna juggles both cases while hiding a decision that will change her own life forever. (Goodreads)
Review:
Too Close to Home is the 8th book in the Anna Sweet Mystery series by Brenda Chapman. Once again, a novella that grabbed my interest and did not let go until the end.
Gail (a friend of Anna’s) does not live in the country and is worried about her grandmother so she asks Anna to check up on her. Anna has agreed to find out what happened to the grandmother and during the process – ends up with a mystery as to who is living in the grandmother’s home and where is she? And who are these people living at the house? Very odd indeed.
At the same time Anna is looking out after Max, a troubled teen living in the woods. Anna frequently buys him a meal or two and makes sure he has adequate clothing for the local climate. But the family of Max is set on having his freedom taken.
As Anna unravels and solves these mysteries, she is also dealing with the absence of her beau who is in New York at a movie premiere. In this story, we have a couple of interesting mysteries/situations for Anna to work on, but also the wrapping up of many family storylines (her father and his girlfriend – will they move, what is Anna’s beau’s secret, and what happens to Anna’s sister). All story arcs are nicely wrapped up and thus – a pleasant way to end this series, at least it feels like the end to me.
If you like novella’s with a bit of mystery, set in picturesque Ottawa – then the Anna Sweet Mystery series is a definite must!