Series: A Haunted Mansion Mystery, #1
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: September 29, 2020
Source: Review copy from NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★

Avery Morgan has been hired to breathe new life into the Portage Path Women’s Club, but first she’ll have to deal with a dead body and a meddling ghost.

Avery Morgan has had a harrowing first week on the job as manager of the Portage Path Woman’s Club. Not only is she in charge of a grand old home with a mountain of maintenance problems and scheduling nightmares–thanks to a recent fire in the Marigold meeting room–but she’s also got Muriel Sadler to deal with. Muriel is the current president of the club, the one “nay” vote when the rest of the board voted “aye” to hiring Avery.

After a morning of dealing with another one of Muriel’s snits and a meeting with the delicious and delightfully unsettling Ben Harkness, who will be handling renovations in the fire-damaged portions of the house, the last thing Avery needs is for one of the fuses to blow. Again.

She grabs her handy flashlight and heads into the basement, where she stumbles across Muriel’s body. She also stumbles across an unexpected helper, Clemmie Bow, the ghost of a young woman who was accidentally killed in the building almost a hundred years ago.

Together Clemmie and Avery are determined to solve Muriel’s murder before the killer sends Avery to join Clemmie on the other side.

What a fun beginning to a promising paranormal cozy mystery series! Main character Avery has landed a new job as manager of Portage Path Woman’s Club, though she’s off to a rocky start when she finds the body of the current club president in the basement, along with a ghost from the 1920s.

Clever and determined, Avery had grand plans to modernize the club, but first she must use her smarts to catch Muriel’s killer. I enjoyed the club setting in the old mansion, and I especially liked Clemmie, the flapper ghost helping Avery with her investigation. The cast of quirky characters was interesting and likable, though the author kept me guessing as to whom would want Muriel dead.

HAUNTED HOMICIDE is an intriguing murder mystery with just the right amount of paranormal. I hope to learn more about Clemmie in future books!

— 𝓓𝓲𝓪𝓷𝓪

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.