Ginger's Shoes by Steve Lindahl

 

When Susie's mother Nancy is about to pass away, she leaves her daughter with a deathbed wish.  "Find Ginger's shoes" she says and Susie knows that if she can she will get the answers about her life that she always wondered about.  When Susie was a child, she had lived on an island on Lake Hopatcong and she goes there to start her search.

She finds that her childhood friend, Kyle, and his family had bought her childhood home and he still lives there.  She starts her hunt there and Kyle remembers seeing her mother holding a shoe and crying one afternoon when he was visiting.  They quickly find that shoe but the other one is missing, sending Susie, Kyle and his girlfriend, Taylor, on a hunt that recreates her mother's life.

This is a quiet mystery without murders or dead bodies.  It allows Susie to slowly find out the things about her mother she never knew and how others who knew her years ago had interacted with her.  Susie also finds out the secrets of her own past.  There is a love interest for everyone and a surprise ending.  This book is recommended for cozy mystery readers.