A Journey to Three Pines - Episode 8: The Beautiful Mystery
Currently Reading
Meredith Schwartz
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 February 2025
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We are so excited to journey with you to Three Pines, the fictional French-Canadian village created by Louise Penny for her Three Pines series, featuring Armand Gamache. This spin-off podcast series will tackle each of the books in the series in turn, in a spoiler-FILLED format. Be sure you’ve read the book before listening to the episode.
As you’ve come to expect with all Currently Reading content, Meredith and Roxanna will follow a regular episode format, with regular segments, so you know what to expect each and every time. We love staying focused on the book, rather than conversational rabbit holes.
Show notes for this series will not be time-stamped except for broad sections, but will include links to Bookshop dot org or Amazon for any books or resources referenced in the episode.
2:00 - Putting the Book Into Context
The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
Published Aug 28, 2012 by Minotaur Books
4.2 rating on Goodreads
Seasonal setting - Autumn
Book Awards: Agatha Award for best novel 2012, The Anthony Award for best novel 2013, The Macavity Award for Best Novel 2013, The Audie Award for Best Mystery Novel 201
Critic Reviews
A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
Meredith’s and Roxanna’s encounters with the book
8:30 - The Setup
9:40 - A Deeper Exploration
Setup and first paragraph
The pacing of the novel
Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
Jean-Guy and Annie
Themes: addiction, “descent” evil - through the lens of Francouer
The ending
The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins
Canadian aspects
1:10:23 - Superlatives
Favorite Scene
Character MVP
Biggest loser
Best food description
Is this book skippable?
Favorite Quote
No spoilers this episode!
The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny
The next book will be How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, readers, welcome to A Journey to Three Pines. In this special limited edition series from the |
| 0:24.3 | currently reading podcast, we are doing a deep exploration of each book in Louise Pinnies' Three Pine |
| 0:30.8 | Mystery series, and we are diving so deep into it. We'll delve into the mysteries, of course, |
| 0:38.8 | but we'll also talk about the characters we love so much, the delightful village of Three Pines, and probably even chat about |
| 0:44.0 | all the delicious meals they feast on, washed down with the bowl of cafe au lait. We'll discuss |
| 0:49.1 | everything from the themes Penny Explores to why we love Armand Gommas and all the rest so very much. |
| 0:57.1 | I'm Meredith Munday Schwartz, co-host of the Currently Reading podcast, and the Three Pine series |
| 1:01.9 | is my favorite book series of all time. And I'm Roxanne Kassamkara, a Canadian reader and show |
| 1:08.0 | regular on the currently reading podcast. I'm making my way through the |
| 1:11.6 | series and loving it. In today's episode, we'll focus on the beautiful mystery, the eighth in the |
| 1:16.8 | series. And yes, this series must, absolutely must be read in order. And we will also say right at the |
| 1:24.6 | top of this podcast that we are going to be diving deep into a beautiful |
| 1:29.9 | mystery. There will be spoilers. So if you haven't read this book yet, you're going to want to press |
| 1:36.3 | pause and come back when you've got that reading in. We'll be discussing each book in context |
| 1:41.2 | of the series as a whole, but we'll save the portions of the discussion for the |
| 1:46.1 | end of the episode if we think that that part of the discussion is going to ruin anything |
| 1:51.5 | beyond a beautiful mystery. Does that make sense? So we will be spoiling a beautiful mystery, |
| 1:56.6 | but not any books that come afterwards. All right, Roxanna, let's start the way we always do, |
| 2:02.8 | and let's get into a few details to kind of set the stage for our book. As we said, |
| 2:09.1 | A Beautiful Mystery is the eighth book in the series. It came out on August 28th, 2012. And it came out |
| 2:16.9 | obviously in hardback. It's 384 pages. As we sit here today, it has a 4.2 rating on |
| 2:23.5 | goodreads in over 85,000 reviews. How do you think of 4.2 sounds, Roxanna? I'm surprised that it's |
... |
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