Tag: ghosts

Review: Ghostly Dilemma (Ghostly Book 8) by E M Leya

Rating:  4.5🌈

The Ghostly series by EM Leya is going strong as demonstrated by Ghostly Dilemma, the eighth book in this excellent paranormal law enforcement series.  With the romantic relationship between ME Lance and Det. Angus is happy and they’ve moved in together, along with their dog Haunt.  Frank, Angus’ partner has recently bought a home, and Lance’s older brother is leaving the military and coming back home. They’ve even gotten back Carrie (recovering from the hostage situation) and acquired a new receptionist. Things are going well. 

So it’s time to get back to work, small caseloads, different jobs, various storylines.  And by switching it up from a singular dramatic plot line to an almost typical workload for both the police department and medical examiner staff, Leya gives the readers a diverse range of cases and people’s stories and experiences that the characters and departments deal with.  

And the author is able to demonstrate once again how well it’s not the high drama that can make a heartbreaking impact but sometimes it’s life’s smallest and most quiet stories that hit the hardest.  Here not all the ghosts are victims, some are those who left life behind in natural causes or silent, peaceful moments. But, of course, not all.   Leya makes each ghost a vibrant personality, no matter how they left their lives behind.  We also see what happens to the people and lives they have lost.  That’s reality too. 

Each one a case of different lengths but each fascinating and of importance to the lives of those around Lance and Angus, a found family that continues to grow in numbers, both living and ghostly. 

I adore this series because it’s so different in its approach to the ghostly world, and the way the author tells the stories associated with the people around the main characters as well as the characters themselves.  

I’m highly excited to see what the next book will bring.  And definitely recommending this series and story.  Read these in the order they are written. 

What a treat they are!

Ghostly series:

  • Ghostly Awakening #1
  • Ghostly Findings #2
  • Ghostly Envy #3
  • Ghostly Claus #4 
  • Ghostly Target #5 
  • Ghostly Hostage #6
  • Ghostly Death #7
  • Ghostly Dilemma #8 
  • Ghostly Bother #9 (coming soon)

Buy Link:

        Ghostly Dilemma

    

Blurb

Sometimes it’s the little cases.

Not every minute of being a detective is spent solving huge murder cases. Sometimes it’s the little ones that take up Detective Young’s life, like the seventy-year-old cold case that suddenly fell into his lap or figuring out if a death was suicide or murder.

Lance spends most of his time working cases that no one hears about. The unattended deaths of those not under a doctor’s care take up most of his time. Now that he can speak to ghosts, some of those cases are the most interesting. Work isn’t all that is keeping him busy—his brother’s girlfriend has shown up in need of his help, and he can’t refuse when she’d helped him so much in the past.

Life is never boring for Lance and Angus, and though work pulls them both in different directions, they always seem to meet up somewhere in the middle of things. Sometimes it feels like if murder and death didn’t bring them together, they’d never get time together at all.

  • Publisher: E.L. Publishing (October 6, 2024)
  • Publication date: October 6, 2024
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 234 pages

Review: Man Of His Dreams (a Hot Nights in the Big Easy novel) by Kim Fielding

Rating: 4.5🌈

What a delicious treat Kim Fielding’s new book turns out to be.  Starting with that fabulously evocative cover by Reese Dante to the historically vibrant setting of New Orleans, Kim Fielding has a winner.  The Big Easy of the series title, New Orleans, with its ghosts, the unsettling atmosphere and mixture of peoples, culture, and the history that comes with that is the perfect setting for a unusual love story.

Kim Fielding’s character, writer Flip Devin is a lost man.  He’s ended a relationship, can’t finish his novel, left a place, a state, he’s drifting.  Now he’s landed in New Orleans for a few months, hoping for inspiration and quiet moments to unblock his creative process.  Fielding delivers a most believable Flip in all his stress, his indecision,  and his real anxiety at this point in his life.  We feel him floundering and we get him.

The beauty of the narrative is the author’s ability to make us feel what Flip is feeling, connecting us to his journey through the streets and history of New Orleans, as he engages with the diverse community the Big Easy has to offer, living and the ghostly.

So many amazing , beautifully crafted elements and characters to be found here , from Scratch himself (I would love to hear more about him and his music), to the nightlife scenes that few others can see.  Man of His Dreams just flew by as I was so caught up in the world, relationships, and story.  Just love it.

 I definitely recommend reading this and can’t wait to see what further joys this series brings.

A Hot Nights in the Big Easy series-7 books:

🔷Man Of His Dreams by Kim Fielding ❤️

🔷Mutual Obsessions by L. A. Kaye 9/15

🔷The Richmond Vampire by Liv Rancourt 9/17/2024

🔷Voodoo Caught by Lynn Michaels 9/18/2025

🔷Banjo by TL Travis 9/20/2024

🔷Tagged by Rachel Langella 9/24/2024

🔷The Bone Doctor by D. K. Sutton 9/27/2024

Buy link 

        Man of His Dreams: A Hot Nights in the Big Easy Novella

    

Blurb

Author Flip Devin has arrived in New Orleans with no suitcase, no inspiration to continue his newest novel, and no hope. Then he begins getting dreamtime visits from Scratch, a handsome musician who was murdered a hundred years ago. According to the fortuneteller across the street, Flip has the gift of Seeing.

Soon after, Flip meets Tony Bergeron, a charming local historian… who looks remarkably like Scratch. Both Tony and Scratch have stories to tell, and New Orleans has magic to share. But with the suitcase still in airline limbo, Flip realizes he’ll need to get rid of his baggage to make room for something new.

  • Publisher: Tin Box Press (September 6, 2024)
  • Publication date: September 6, 2024
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 146 pages

Review:  Riddles & Rivals (The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club Book 5) by K. Sterling

Rating: 5🌈

Riddles & Rivals, an enemies to lovers story, was everything I anticipated it to be and more.  Involving two of the most compelling and layered individuals in this series, Sterling delves deeply into the men’s heavily woven lives that includes their families connected thru their often dark histories. As the last of the original mine owning founding families of Bisbee, Mercer and Baxter’s animosity started in their adolescence.  Fueled by the difference in their backgrounds, the deep religious beliefs, and the disparity climate of the household in which each man was raised.  

Riddles & Rivals sees Mayor Mercer Hathaway asking his longtime enemy Baxter Dawson for help. Mercer is tearing down the ominous Hathaway House and wants an answer to the famous old unsolved crime of what really happened to Julia Lowell.  A crime that has long been thought to have been committed by a Hathaway.  The answers might be in Hathaway House and they have a weekend to find out before it’s torn down.

That’s the bare minimum of this complex, character driven, beautifully crafted mystery. It’s got ghosts determined by their own agendas, ancient passions and two men who find themselves in a strange place where they unravel long held secrets and their own destiny.

Sterling’s forward asks reviewers not to divulge the spoilers of the story and I won’t. They are far too fantastic. 

I thought the men, their strengths and struggles with their pasts, especially Mercer’s inner voice as he wrestles with the events and his emotions, are so vivid and powerful.

Riddles & Rivals (The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club Book 5) by K. Sterling is a highlight of the series and a fabulous read.  A must in itself and in the series.

Loving the covers.

The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club :

  • Haunted Hearts #1
  • Moonlight & Madness #2
  • Unhappy Medium #3
  • Grave Expectations #4
  • Riddles & Rivals #5
  • Shadows & Reservations #6
  • Heart & Soulless #7
  • Specters & Sparks # 8

Buy link

        Riddles & Rivals (The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club Book 5)

    

Blurb

One haunted mansion. Two lifelong enemies. Three days to solve one of Bisbee’s most notorious mysteries.It’s nearly Valentine’s Day but it might as well be Christmas for Baxter Dawson when Bisbee’s mayor, Mercer Hathaway, knocks on his door with an irresistible proposition for the town’s favorite crime solver. Mercer’s planning to tear down The Hathaway House and burn everything inside it to free himself of his family’s dark legacy. But first, Mercer wants to find the answer to a riddle that’s plagued him for decades: who killed Julia Lowell and why does she haunt him every time he’s a guest at The Copper Queen Hotel? The answer is somewhere inside The Hathaway House but the real mystery is: can these two bitter rivals survive a weekend together in a mansion full of ghosts and Hathaway Family skeletons without killing each other?

  • Publisher: Bawdy Books (June 30, 2021)
  • Publication date: June 30, 2021
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 178 pages

Review:  Unhappy Medium (The Bisbee Batchelors’ Club Book 3) by K Sterling 

Rating: 4.75🌈

I’m a big fan of author K Sterling and that includes this fascinating paranormal series, The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club.  It takes place in a real, absolutely intriguing historical mining town of Bisbee, Arizona.  

Definitely take the time to check into Bisbee, look at the history and pictures, as it’s a great place to go for a trip for its art,  ghosts, and history.   Don’t miss out on reading the author’s notes as well.

The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club, that group of well known, single men in Bisbee that meet at The Bisbee Bean Company for coffee have slowly each been getting their own stories and romances. Their lives are interwoven with each other’s as well as their stories. 

It’s common for ghosts, witches, mediums, and the paranormal to play big roles in the storylines as the town is steeped with haunted houses and historical events that resonate.

This book turned out to be a favorite. The characters, Noah Kennedy, younger brother to Hal, and Kieran, a firefighter, are two souls who are bound together and meeting each other again. This is a great element but a tough one to get right and the author does. We see it happen, the spontaneous, spiritual sparking connection and how that affects both men.  If you are thinking instant acceptance, you’re wrong. 

So it’s an intense, revelatory dance around this soul connection that’s pulling them together, while a murder case that involves Noah is being investigated.  Both threads are beautifully written and executed to pull the reader into the story and make them fully invested in every aspect of this book and these characters journey.

Old familiar characters are here to help them and support the investigation.  There are new characters that are also involved that will be established further as towns citizens.

I can’t wait to get further into this series and explore more of the ghostly history and paranormal romance to come.

Highly recommend!

Great cover!

The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club :

  • Haunted Hearts #1
  • Moonlight & Madness #2
  • Unhappy Medium #3
  • Grave Expectations #4
  • Riddles & Rivals #5
  • Shadows & Reservations #6
  • Heart & Soulless #7
  • Specters & Sparks # 8

Buy link

        Unhappy Medium (The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club)

    

Blurb

The cards don’t lie… He drew the Two of Cups and the Hierophant. Noah Kennedy might be an unwilling empath but he knows better than to doubt the deck or turn his will against fate. He’s spent his whole life running from his gift and believed he was cursed. Anyone would, after a childhood overshadowed by the afterlife. Knowing too much about the living and the dead can make life nearly impossible. Seeing his brother happily engaged leaves Noah emotionally adrift and tired of being a burden. Noah wonders if he has a purpose, other than holding his brother back and making his eye twitch. The Two of Cups. Kieran Watts is the one. He’s Noah’s soulmate and his future but the otherwise fearless firefighter runs after a meet cute in a hot dog joint reveals a shockingly intense and sensual psychic bond. Kieran has deep emotional scars and does his best to avoid Noah but can’t deny the pull he feels whenever they cross paths. And he certainly can’t resist the heat and the sparks when they touch. The Hierophant. A not-so-chance encounter with a local witch sets Noah on a path our young medium hadn’t foreseen. Or refused to see until a murderer attempts to frame Noah’s new guardian angel and teacher. Noah begrudgingly accepts that he could be a powerful witch and turns to The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club for help finding a killer and learns he’s not as much of a lost cause as he thought he was.

  • Publisher: Bawdy Books (March 29, 2021)
  • Publication date: March 29, 2021
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 143 pages

Review: Ghostly Hostage (Ghostly Book 6) by E M Laya

Rating: 4.5🌈

Ghostly Hostage is an excellent example of a series can continue to grow and expand its universe and make narrative choices that are both exciting and challenging.

In Ghostly Hostage, our main couple has just finished their much needed vacation abroad a cruise. They’ve also decided to move into Lance’s house together. All big plans and steps forward in their relationship.

But immediately they and this story is plunged into a hostage situation.

Usually it’s Homicide Detective Angus whose life is placed in jeopardy. But here, instead, it’s the morgue with all its employees we’ve gotten to know and become fond of who are in eminent danger.

Laya makes the situation even more complicated by placing at its center a case and the people holding them at gunpoint, people we will understand and empathize with. It’s a horrible situation but at its heart is something far worse. A dead child who may have been murdered.

The author switches the perspective back and forth between the increasingly tense hostage situation and those outside the morgue hoping for answers, amplifying the suspense and the anxiety scene by scene. Even as the emotional component is realistically raised by those inside and out, with people crumbling under the stress, Laya remembers this is a police procedural that includes stalling by the hospital, warrants, and long hours of believable research. Even when there’s ghosts involved.

And there’s plenty of ghosts involved here. Including new ones. They flow seamlessly into the investigation in increasingly familiar but complex ways. And it adds to the paranormal aspect of this series by involving new characters in this world.

The crime, criminal, and ending was one I really appreciated. Although it’s a ghostly tale, the author treats it in a factual, grounded in reality manner that elevates the story.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.

I’m highly recommending this book and the entire series.

Ghostly series:

✓ Ghostly Awakening #1

✓ Ghostly Findings #2

✓ Ghostly Envy #3

✓ Ghostly Claus #4

✓ Ghostly Target #5

✓ Ghostly Hostage #6

◦ Ghostly Death #7-tbd

Buy Link:

Ghostly Hostage

Blurb:

Back from vacation, Lance is ready to dive back into work—that is, until the morgue employees are taken hostage on his first day back. Held at gunpoint was not how he thought he’d spend his day. With their lives on the line, Lance and the others have no choice but to follow orders and perform the autopsy that’s been demanded.

Angus never dreamed he’d be the one worrying about Lance being killed. He was the one with the dangerous job, not Lance. With the only information he can get coming from the ghosts, Angus and his mother try to sort through the evidence and do everything they can to keep Lance and the others alive.

As the case unfolds, Angus faces twists and turns he never saw coming, and as the truth is exposed, he prays the vacation he just enjoyed with Lance won’t be the last one they ever share.

• Publisher: E.L. Publishing (February 20, 2024)

• Publication date: February 20, 2024

• Language: English

• File size: 425 KB

Review: Dead Serious Case #4 Professor Prometheus Plume: MM Paranormal Romance & Dark Comedy (Crawshanks Guide to the Recently Departed) by Vawn Cassidy

Rating: 5🌈

Vawn Cassidy’s Crawshanks Guide to the Recently Departed is one of my favorite series. Dark humor, beautifully realized characters, and extremely well executed plots that convey the heartbreak and the joy of love and romance, the horror and hope of experiencing life and losing it, as well as the light and darkness that exists beyond. It’s all there in every story.

Each book revolves around a case of a dead person. Sometimes it’s horrifying, sometimes hilariously funny or tragic and traumatic. Sometimes it’s both sad and frightening. And all these things.

In Dead Serious Case #3 Mr Bruce Reyes #3, the small group, Inspector Danny Hayes, forensic pathologist Tristan Everett, ghost Dusty Le Frey, and her boyfriend, ghost Bruce Abernathy, among others, helped save the world. A scary, horrific tale, even if being immensely satisfying.

Now, Cassidy has written a fabulous story, one that’s naturally got a crime, a murder, a manor house full of the most wildly entertaining and exasperating people and ghosts. A natural bookend to the one prior.

The story opens up, realistically and wryly in the morgue, with an extremely exhausted Tristan trying to complete an examination, with ghostly onlookers inference. The outcome of this wonderful scenario will see two very tired men on a much needed holiday. One of which keeps trying to find the perfect place to propose.

What ensues is absolute narrative perfection. Amidst high comedy, murder most theatrical, and ghostly antics at The Ashton-Drake Manor House Hotel, Cassidy’s also includes the raw issues these men face and the daily pain of their experiences. There’s an emotional reunion between Danny and his long estranged family, as well the wrenching emotional scenes of Tris trying to come to terms with the reality of his father’s approaching death from dementia.

The hijinks , murder included, to be found at the Manor, is a romp over the reality that Danny and Tris have left behind. When I say that Cassidy has created new characters and moments so quietly hilarious that I’d say they were “spew worthy” is to be understated.

Ah, Dilys! This the ancient, tiny bartender will forever be held responsible for the wine stains on the carpet as I giggled away at her approach!

I fell so deeply in love with everyone at The Ashton-Drake Manor House Hotel, alive and ghostly, that I want the author to revisit this location and entertaining little group of inhabitants, whether it’s by a individual book or story in this series in the future. They are simply so perfect to consign to one book.

Throughout the events that occur and the characters that make up the zaniness’s of this investigation, this is one fabulous piece of murder that ranks among my favorite books of the year.

Of course, it’s a gift from the author, because the ending proves that this has always been a part of the larger universe and the scary enlarging arc the author’s been creating.

So amazing. Breathtaking really. For now we are halfway prepared for the darkness to come.

The is a series that’s an absolute must read, but do it in the order that the books are written. Highly recommended, at the top of my rec list.

Fabulous cover as usual.

Crawshanks Guide to the Recently Departed:

✓ Dead Serious Case #1 Miz Dusty Le Frey #1

✓ Dead Serious Case #2 Mrs Delores Abernathy #2

✓ Dead Serious Case #3 Mr Bruce Reyes #3

✓ Dead Serious Case #4 Professor Prometheus Plume #4

◦ Dead Serious Case #5 Madame Vivienne: Schedule 2024

Buy Link:

Dead Serious Case #4 Professor Prometheus Plume: MM Paranormal Romance & Dark Comedy (Crawshanks Guide to the Recently Departed)

Blurb:

Inspector Danny Hayes has something very important to ask his boyfriend Tristan Everett. Over the past six months they’ve survived reapers, chaos monsters, and biblical storms, not to mention averting an apocalypse. So, what’s left to do but pop the big question?

Tristan is ready for a break from world-saving, spectral crises, and most definitely from ghosts. He wants some one-on-one time with his boyfriend, preferably horizontally. So when their Boxing Day celebrations result in a drunken booking of a romantic New Year’s getaway at a quiet little hotel near the wilds of the north Yorkshire moors, Tristan can’t wait.

But as usual nothing ever goes according to plan. Snowed in during an unexpected murder mystery weekend at what turns out to be one of the most haunted hotels in Northern England is not what they had in mind, but when one of the actors turns up really dead not just fake dead, they once again find themselves caught up in another investigation.

With only one night to figure out who the killer is while wrangling a multitude of overly helpful ghosts, Tristan begins to wonder if romance really is dead…

• Publisher: (December 31, 2023)

• Publication date: December 31, 2023

• Print length: 285 pages

Review: Haunted Hearts (The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club Book 1) by K Sterling

Rating: 4.5🌈

K Sterling’s series The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club is a wonderful strange world to tumble into. For starters, it exists. Bisbee, Arizona is a real place. That knowledge alone sent me running to google as much as I could about a place that is as descriptively beautiful, narratively haunting, and just outright fascinating as you might imagine. The photographs made me want to take the next plane out to see it for myself.

With that rich, historic haunted town as both a backdrop and foundation, Sterling populates it with some great characters, of equal degrees of emotional depth and haunted backstories. The Bisbee Batchelor s Club. Stories written about the single men of the queer friendly, hippy artsy former copper mining town.

And it starts with one of the most emotionally haunted man of them all,

Cace Talbot. Surrounded by his son and close friends, it’s still not enough to keep the pain away from losing his soul mate, the man who left him and the town to pursue his art. Cace is still struggling and Sterling make him easy to understand and relate to.

Especially when the man he’s been trying to forget returns to town. That’s Laurence “Lorrie” Nixon, who’s come back after 25 years away.

There’s a realistic look at the years these men have lost. It’s a true bittersweet element that runs through their reunion and reconnecting relationship. Discussions over what might have been, the children they should have had, the moments lost they will never get, it’s so sad in those moments when they are sharing memories , painful, and heartbreaking. It’s twenty-five years of love and loss and longing that they know could have been theirs but wasn’t. This aspect is there even as they decide to go forward because it’s ingrained into who they’ve become.

I love that Sterling is able to build this not only into the storyline but into their characters too. It makes the depth of their bond even more believable.

The murder mystery that runs along side the romance rebuilding is good but strangely just a secondary storyline. It never feels like a main theme. I liked how it plays out, but wanted a little bit more details and depth to the investigation until the reveal. It was all a bit pat for me.

But the relationship between Lorrie and Cace? That was emotional and heartfelt. And adding in all the found family members around them was perfect.

I’m onto the next. I’m absolutely sold on the town and these characters. And I’m a fan of the author, so I’m thrilled to gave a new series to binge.

I’m happily recommending Haunted Hearts (The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club Book 1) by K Sterling. Enjoy!

The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club:

✓ Haunted Hearts #1

◦ Moonlight & Madness #2

◦ Unhappy Medium #3

◦ Grave Expectations #4

◦ Riddles & Rivals #5

◦ Shadows & Reservations #6

◦ Heart & Soulless #7

◦ Specters & Sparks #8

Buy Link

Haunted Hearts (The Bisbee Bachelors’ Club Book 1)

Blurb:

There are worse things haunting Cace Talbot than the ghosts inhabiting his beloved hometown. Hidden in Arizona’s Mule Mountains, Bisbee was small in a cozy way and just casually haunted with specters from its wild and sometimes dark past. Then, Laurence “Lorrie” Nixon returns after breaking Cace’s heart twenty-five years earlier and the town becomes too small and the memories a lot scarier.

Lorrie’s waited long enough and is determined to win Cace back no matter how hard he has to grovel. He’s already got his work cut out for him when a pair of copycat killings with echoes from Bisbee’s past cast suspicion Lorrie’s way. Lorrie turns to Cace and their band of childhood friends for help solving the brutal murders.

Cace doesn’t want to see his first love accused of a gruesome crime he didn’t commit but that doesn’t mean he’s letting Lorrie Nixon back into his life. At least, that’s what Cace says. His body on the other hand… Can Cace help find a killer without getting caught up in the memories and the pull of Lorrie’s lips?

Review: Ghostly Target (Ghostly Book 5) by E M Laya

Rating: 4🌈

The Ghostly series continues with Ghostly Target, a book about a killer targeting police officers. This plot switches the focus from the normal plots where the bodies have been found to the detective team of Angus and Franks, and a suspenseful investigation.

One officer down, that’s the first body but the killer is shooting at officers, randomly it seems picking targets. So immediately Laya has a strong narrative full of fear, anger, and frustration from all the characters involved. This is not just Angus and Franks, the officers fearing for their own lives but dealing with the death of one of their own, but Lance, and the co workers, and all the ghosts who make up their found families .

It is also the ghost of the first officer who was shot, and dealing with the aftermath of his death. This element is always such a great aspect of this series and is a strong one here. The author is very good as portraying a person’s confusion and frustration at being dead and denied access to the life and people they love.

All the ghosts are so memorable and their roles in the investigation and events just make them more interesting.

Lance and Angus’s relationship is gotten more committed, obviously as they are talking about moving forward with one house. But so much of the story, naturally, has to be about this killer and their investigation, that I felt their relationship development was lost.

I need more of Frank actually. Frank’s a fascinating character and deserving of his new life, maybe a dog or something. His personality is crying out for another storyline.

There’s no indication if there’s to be a new book or if the author considers this a finale. It doesn’t read like one to me.

I enjoy the series and this new novel. Wonderful investigative plot and use of the ghosts!

Ghostly series:

✓ Ghostly Awakening #1

✓ Ghostly Findings #2

✓ Ghostly Envy #3

✓ Ghostly Claus #4

✓ Ghostly Target #5

Buy Link:

Ghostly Target

Blurb:

When someone starts killing police officers in the city, Detective Angus Young prioritizes finding out who’s attacking those he works with. He’s determined to take down the killer before any more officers are targeted.

Having the skill to speak to the ghosts of the dead is usually helpful to a medical examiner, but not when the ghosts can’t identify who killed them. Keeping Angus safe is Lance’s first priority as he does everything he can to try and help fit the clues together and bring peace to those who have died.

Working together, Angus and Lance put everything else on hold as they follow the leads to find a cop killer. With the help of friends both living and dead, the puzzle slowly starts to fit together, but once they have all the pieces, can they find the killer before another officer is shot?

Review: Soul Eater by Ofelia Gränd

Rating: 4.75🌈

Swedish author, Ofelia Gränd’s latest novel reminds me that I really need to put her on my auto buy list.

Soul Eater’s wonderful universe drew me in completely and the storylines kept me invested in the characters and the potential for more tales to come.

She begins the story with a Paranormal Investigations Department that employs a number of different beings, from a psychic to a witch with detectives of various shifter species, including a jaguar Captain.

We get a glimpse into a squad out of sorts with each other and the cases several missing women to solve.

The individuals within the squad are divided into two groups, the magical humans and the shifters, as personalities and deep feelings have contributed to conflict between the members. Gränd’s believable well defined characters help the reader understand the differences that now exist between them as the case investigation gets underway.

I’m not sure exactly what it is about this author’s work that adds that extra dimension to it. That touch of subtle horror or oddity that overlies the most mundane of actions.

Not that there’s much of those here in a paranormal mystery murder thriller where shifters, sorcery, a ghost, and Halloween overlap .

Especially a wereghost. I found that aspect of the story so satisfying as it develops on multiple levels.

The author’s world building expands as the story goes along, our knowledge of the magical universe coming to include a division of human witchcraft into wizards, mages, sorcerers and warlocks, an distinction that’s been hidden from the human population and paranormal one alike. This has implications for a major part of the storyline and not one I would spoil. It’s just one more thing I found entertaining and added more to the characters.

It’s elements like this that will keep me returning to Gränd’s books and hopefully more in this universe.

I found the narrative fascinating, the elements marvelous, the characters well developed, and all of it thrilling and suspenseful.

A definite recommendation for this author and book! Love it!

Buy Link:

Blurb:

Detective Thaddeus Ezax is in over his head. He’s the only wizard in Rockshade’s Paranormal Investigations Department, and it was his name that got him the job. The Ezaxs are known as some of the most powerful wizards in the world, but Thaddeus isn’t your average Ezaxs. Is it any wonder his family shuns him?

When a kidnapping case is dropped into his lap, Thaddeus must act fast. While most five-year-olds can cast a location spell, Thaddeus can’t and is forced to get creative. When he finds himself in possession of a black market werewolf skull with a ghost trapped inside, accidentally releases the spirit, and somehow forms a connection with it, things get even crazier.

Sandulf Hunter doesn’t remember dying, but he remembers the last thing he saw before everything went black — a wizard. All wizards must die! The only problem is, the wizard standing next to him smells too damned good, so good Sandy thinks he might have to keep him.

And since wherever Thaddeus goes, Sandulf finds himself yanked along, he might not have a choice in the matter anyway.

• Publisher: JMS Books LLC (October 31, 2020)

• Publication date: October 31, 2020

• Print length: 186 pages

Review: Dearly & Vain Valentino (Dearly and The Departed #2) by L.A. Kaye

Rating: 3.25🌈

This is such a peculiar series. On one side, Kaye has created a terrific character in Keir Dearly, proprietor of Dearly & Son Funeral Home. Keir, one in a long line of Dearly men who can see and converse with the dead. That aspect of his life is due to an ancient curse on their family. Which is odd considering that it is really defined as a gift or a medium’s purpose not a curse outside of this world building.

But that perspective is reflective of the choices the author makes within this series.

But back to Keir. He’s intelligent, compassionate, an introvert who’s accepting of others and has a giving nature. In short, a fantastic person and character. And a perfect person to run a funeral home where the ghosts of the bodies delivered get a reception they deserve. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s grim, oftentimes it’s poignant, even heart wrenching. We get the ghosts memories of their last moments and then their families, if they have them, grieving at their services. All conducted by Keir.

That’s truly the best part of this book and series. It’s where the author goes spectacularly right. It’s in the smallest of details as Keir listens to the families or the ghosts pour out their hearts and emotions over the fact they’re dead, how they died, and then seeing them pass on.

It’s not even the ghosts that are the main aspect of each storyline but ones that factor in as part of the daily life of Dearly & Son Funeral Home that can make you feel the most emotions. The woman who denied her sexuality and the woman who loved her until it was too late. That bittersweet funeral was shattering. Or the young man in the wrong place at the wrong time who died by GSW and was met by the ghost of his father. Buckets of tears I tell you for such a small scene .

But it’s the other elements that make me question the world building, the storytelling and the series.

Unfortunately, it also includes the other main character and love interest.

That’s Dashiell Clegg, younger owner/mechanic of a cycle shop. First met when his nasty ghost brother wanted Keir to save Dash from the plot he set him up when he was alive. Yeah, it didn’t make much sense in the first book either.

Dash is a problematic character. Part of the two person narrative, his voice is a grating one. I never understood how writers could create such a self centered character and expect the reader to get on board with him as part of a romance. Here Dash has fled to another country rather than talk to Keir about his “gift/curse/fears” revelation. He also hasn’t communicated to his found family of coworkers in his shop who’ve always supported him, even in prison.

His thoughts and views are all about him. When eventually something happens to bring it to his attention that he’s causing Keir and others pain? It’s yes “I’m a jerk, I’m thoughtless “ but the author doesn’t create any real sense of realness or believability behind these thoughts.

It’s more a surface readymade answer you throw out rather than a real sense of introspection. In fact, there’s no sense of chemistry between Keir and Dash as characters. It seems like a forced element from the very beginning.

Aside from the lack of real relationships, there’s a new end of world story threads that again has little foundation but some interesting things about it. New characters appear, some very likable. And narratively, twists happen within the storyline that were predictable from the minute the clues begin to emerge. You knew which things or aspects of the plot were going to be the “bad ones “.

The author was telegraphing it with a red and black stamp. Ditto the good ones.

I can can definitely say that I’m reading these books with very mixed feelings. I’m appreciative of quite a bit of the author’s work here but just not connecting with some major elements too. Half and half.

It’s also fifty fifty as to if I’m going to continue to read on with the series. If I do, it will be for all the terrific moments and for the character of Keir that’s a true draw for me.

Dearly and Departed series:

✓ Dearly & Deviant Daniel #1

✓ Dearly & Vain Valentino #2

◦ Dearly & Notorious Nancy #3

◦ Dearly & Homeless Horace #4-Jan 16,2024

◦ Dearly & Threatening Thane #5-June 28, 2024

Buy link:

Dearly & Vain Valentino (Dearly and The Departed Book 2)

Blurb:

When the family business is death, how does one convince the deceased to embrace the afterlife without hurting their delicate feelings?

Keir Dearly, proprietor of Dearly & Son Funeral Home, is working his way through heartache after Dashiell Clegg, the object of his affection, has taken off on an adventure and left Keir behind. When a certain handsome detective shows up and wants to woo the mortician, temptation knocks. Will Keir answer while Dash is off trying to accept mind blowing news and navigate a new reality?

Valentino Rankin, a fledgling male model, becomes a client of Keir’s at Dearly & Son by paying more attention to his reflection in a store window than the flow of traffic. He refuses to give Keir information to assist with reconnecting him to his body and has a hard time accepting he has to fight a living biker and a cop for Keir Dearly’s affections.

How can Keir convince Valentino that the afterlife is calling, or is there something more to Valentino that Keir can’t see? Can Dash help clear things up with his newly acquiredskills that will be a surprise to everyone? There’s trouble with the electricity at Dearly & Son, and it’s nothing an electrician can fix!