Secret Shopper

I had a very positive experience as a Secret Shopper. I told the (very friendly and positive) librarian that I had read Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects and Gone Girl and really enjoyed both of them. I also told her that in general I really liked dark, twisted reads and was open to any authors, I just wanted a similar tone. The librarian asked me about whether I wanted to base our search on those book titles, or on Gillian Flynn as an author. Having read all Flynn titles, I told her that I was interested in looking at related reads to Flynn as an author. She then asked me if I had read any Jodi Picoult books, and when I explained that I had but had never been very impressed with her works she said no problem, and at this point, she pulled up novelist. The librarian was very thorough, and while using Novelist, she didn't just use it to look up some options for me, she also explained how the database worked and showed me how to access it with my library card! I found this to be really awesome! Her enthusiasm was obvious and I walked away with a new understanding of how to use a tool rather than just a new book to read. Using Novelist she searched for Gillian Flynn and we read through the list of related authors, and read through the descriptions of each one's work. At this point, we talked about the authors that sounded interesting to me based upon these descriptions and wrote down a list of possible options. She was very honest with me and told me that it might take reading a few book descriptions by these authors, as she felt that sometimes the Novelist author descriptions were spot on, but sometimes they were inaccurate. The librarian then took the list of authors that we compiled and cross checked them with the library's catalog to see which authors had works in the catalog, and in the library that day. This list included authors Erin Kelly, Andrew Klavan, Peter Abrahams, and Claudia Pineiro. At this point, the librarian actually did not suggest any single title, but instead told me where to find these works in the library and had me go look for books by these authors. Although it would have been nice to walk away with a book recommendation or to have been shown where these books were, it was a very busy day in the library, and there was a line of people behind me, and although these factors may have contributed to her not recommending a single book, I never felt like she wasn't giving the interaction her all, and walked away knowing about 4 new authors to explore!