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Tag Archives: mystery

Book Review: An Enchanting Case of Spirits

16 April 202416 April 2024

An Enchanting Case of Spirits by Melissa Holtz mixes a little bit of sleuthing with spirits who have unfinished business. Sprinkle a little bit of romance on top, and we have this new spirited mystery from Berkley Publishing.

Synopsis

When a fortieth birthday celebration leads to a ghostly visitor, four friends find themselves navigating surprising mysteries and spiritual hijinks, in this clever debut from Melissa Holtz.

Alyssa Mann isn’t adventurous, not since her husband died and she found herself the single mom of a teenage daughter. But there’s no way to avoid celebrating the big 4-0, so when her best friends drag her out for drinks and a tarot reading, she throws caution to the wind and decides to see what the spirits have to say. It’s all fun and games, until she wakes up the next morning with a wicked hangover—and a ghost perched on the edge of her bed.

Sheer panic sends her running to get help from Nick West, the (very attractive) detective who lives next door. When he finds no one inside, Alyssa has to accept that she really did see a ghost. As the dearly departed keep appearing, Alyssa and her friends do their best to learn how to control her newfound power. Trading insults with ghosts, tracking down family heirlooms, and getting closer to the skeptical but helpful Nick is more fun than Alyssa imagined. But when looking into one ghost’s past reveals unexpected—and unwelcome—facts about Alyssa’s late husband’s death, she discovers she just may be in over her head.

Book Review

In An Enchanting Case of Spirits, Alyssa’s medium powers awaken during a tarot reading and things will never be the same again for her or her friends. In this comedic ride with a psychic helping spirits with unfinished business move on (mainly, because she wants them out of her life), we discover that these spirits all have one thing in common (besides being dead). Unbeknownst to any of them, they all have a reason why they are flocking to Alyssa, and it is not just because she’s a medium now. It’s because she also has a connection to their deaths.

Alyssa and her friends (plus throw in the tarot card reader that sparked Alyssa’s newfound power) band together to help unravel what happened to these ghosts. Nick West (the hot homicide detective living next door) can’t really help them because his captain closed these case files after feeling pressure from the mayor.

Alyssa can’t stand her neighbor, but in the enemies-to-lovers trope, you know she’ll eventually change her mind. Both characters come from a background of loss. Alyssa’s husband died in a car accident. Nick’s fiancée died from cancer. In time, their attraction to each other takes over after all of her requests for help brings them together, even if he can’t believe she sees ghosts.

But Nick starts to believe after a girl goes missing and she is able to give him details on where she can be found. That case that he was told to close, it ends up that she can do something to uncover the truth behind not just that one case, but multiple cases. While he may hate that she is becoming an amateur sleuth, he can’t help but think that maybe he should listen to what she has to say, despite her strange way of obtaining information.

I enjoyed this book. There were a lot of laugh out loud moments with the ghosts providing comic relief to Alyssa’s predicament. I was happy at the end when I discovered this may be the beginning of this story. I actually felt like screaming, “YES!” We’re getting a book two.

Sleuthing friends where the ghosts are helping them with their own unfinished business, what’s not to love? What they’re getting themselves into though is pretty dangerous and could cost them their own lives. So yes, there is a bit of a scare element in this mystery.

If you like the show Ghosts, you will definitely love this book.

An Enchanting Case of Spirits is out now. You can order a copy through the Bookshop.org or Amazon Bookshop link in the Shop menu above.

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Book Review: Village in the Dark

13 February 202414 February 2024

If you’ve been enjoying True Detective: Night Country as much as I have, you may like this new book out today from Iris Yamashita, “Village in the Dark.”

This book takes place in Alaska. So get your hot cocoa, tea, or coffee ready because we are about to travel into tribal lands.

SYNOPSIS

In Village in the Dark, Detective Cara Kennedy thought she’d lost her husband and son in an accident, but harrowing evidence has emerged that points to murder—and she will stop at nothing to find the truth in this riveting mystery from the author of City Under One Roof.

On a frigid February day, Anchorage Detective Cara Kennedy stands by the graves of her husband and son, watching as their caskets are raised from the earth. It feels sacrilegious, but she has no choice. Aaron and Dylan disappeared on a hike a year ago, their bones eventually found and buried. But shocking clues have emerged that foul play was involved, potentially connecting them to a string of other deaths and disappearances.

Somehow tied to the mystery is Mia Upash, who grew up in an isolated village called Unity, a community of women and children in hiding from abusive men. Mia never imagined the trouble she would find herself in when she left home to live in Man’s World. Although she remains haunted by the tragedy of what happened to the man and the boy in the woods, she has her own reasons for keeping quiet.

Aided by police officer Joe Barkowski and other residents of Point Mettier, Cara’s investigation will lead them on a dangerous path that puts their lives and the lives of everyone around them in mortal jeopardy.

Review

First, I would like to preface this in saying that the synopsis for Village in the Dark strips the story of what made it so intriguing. This book is written by an Asian American woman and includes the story of the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska. She brings together numerous tribes, including an Asian woman and her biracial daughter. These women create their own community together to raise their children. They live off the land, preparing for the day they could come under attack by an abusive ex.

Point Mettier is another community created by a former bank robber who was abused by her husband. In a large condo building, she lives with an entire community that seeks to hide women on the run from their abusive exes. The entire community exists in this one building, and they are there to protect each other.

Mia’s character is also of interest. She is a young woman who was raised in Unity Village. Reading about her journey into Man’s World was a centering moment in understanding how difficult it can be for Indigenous People to navigate the two worlds, especially ours. These are the conversations I’ve seen in the comment sections of Native American Instagram accounts.

After Cara discovers the DNA of her husband and son do not match the bodies that she had buried, that is when everything goes crazy. She soon discovers more and more dead bodies cropping up. And they’re all connected. She just has to figure out how, and it all begins with the photos they found on a gangster’s cell phone.

I was surprised how well an Asian American woman was able to include Indigenous stories into this book, all the way down to the language. She was able to do this with the help of the Native American community. They made sure she was including these elements correctly.

I also loved how she included a Japanese Indigenous woman to the Unity village. I loved seeing women uplifting each other, protecting each other, and creating a society together. They even came up with their own language, which is a little bit of everything from the different tribes.

As for the murder investigations and who is out there killing everyone, I wasn’t expecting any of it. First, I thought it was a serial killer, but it ended up being something far worse. Betrayals will abound.

This book is a quick read. A little under 300 pages.

I really enjoyed it. But mostly, I appreciated that an Asian American woman was able to tell a story that properly included Indigenous voices with the help of someone from the Native American community. There are a lot of strong women in this book. It’s like a happy ending for those who are victims of domestic violence. It’s all about community in the end and lifting your hand down to raise each other up. This is a quality that the Native American community teaches. That is what wins out in the end.

Thank you, Berkley Publishing, for sending this book my way. It gave me more confidence to keep working on my two book projects because I am an Asian American woman incorporating Indigenous stories into my books. It was good to read a book by another Asian American woman who accomplished this feat.

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Roam

25 July 201829 October 2018

If you want a new thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat, read this book from Erik Therme.  Erik is one of my favorite authors that always keeps me at the edge of my seat.  His first two novels, Mortom and Resthaven are both excellent reads.  Just when I think I’ve figured out what is going on, Erik always changes things up and it will leave you guessing all the way until the last page.  When you get to the last page, you are always left thinking, “THAT’S IT???”  He leaves you screaming for more.  

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The Woman in Cabin 10

30 May 201725 June 2017

If you liked “Girl on the Train,” this is your kind of book.  A reporter is covering a story about a luxury cruise liner for her magazine.  Days before they embark, her apartment is burglarized while she is in it.  Despite being frazzled and injured from the incident, she still goes on the cruise because she realizes the importance of her career advancement.  What she doesn’t realize is that a murder is about to go down in the cabin next to hers.  Or was there a murder?  With no one missing from the ship, and everyone, including the staff accounted for, did she dream this up?  Being on medication and drinking alcohol incessantly does not help the situation as the people aboard think that she is inept and is making up the whole story, while she is adamant that she is right.  Someone was killed in the cabin next to hers.  Either she is going crazy or someone is making her go crazy.

[Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review.  This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive compensation.]

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Grave of Hummingbirds

29 May 201725 June 2017

A woman is murdered and her body is found in the shape of an angel, leaving a village completely stunned.  Years later, a woman who looks just like the dead woman arrives in the village with her son on a holiday.  As the town remarks on the significance of her arrival on the anniversary of the last woman’s death, people fear that the murderer will strike again, especially after the woman goes missing and her son is left to find her with little to no help from the villagers.

[Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive compensation.]   

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