Every Tom, Dick & Harry: A Novel

Emma Lewis returns to her small Massachusetts hometown to reluctantly take over the family business of running estate sales. When her parents retire, she moves into their former home, along with a housemate they selected: a retired high school math teacher. He’s not the only person from Emma’s high school past she encounters and soon she’s happily involved with Luke, the town’s hunky police chief.

More complicated than their somewhat hidden romance is how to handle the upcoming sale at one of the town’s fanciest mansions, which turns out to have been a “house of ill repute”. It could be lucrative; it might be scandalous.

Lipman is adept at snappy dialogue throughout but I was left feeling as if I never truly came to know Emma, even though she narrates the tale. Much like an estate sale, this cheeky rom-com is over-stuffed with characters: some of them gems, while others have less value and just clutter up the tables. Perhaps not *every* Tom, Dick, and Harry needed to be added to keep the complicated plot moving along.