Hurrah - my first book for the Readers In Peril Reading Challenge! This one came to me by way of a fellow reader, and I've been saving it up, because it has ghosts and mysterious murder - what more could you want in an RIP book?
7 bedrooms. 4 baths. 2 ghosts. Newly divorced Alison Kerby wants a second chance for herself and her nine-year-old daughter, so she's returned to her home town on the Jersey Shore to transform a fixer-upper into a charming - and hopefully profitable - guesthouse. But when a bump on the head leaves her seeing not only stars but spirits, Alison realises the real challenge she's facing is out of this world. The two residing ghosts are Maxie Malone, the foul-tempered former owner of the house (who has definite opinions about Alsicon's design plans), and Paul Harrison, a private eye who'd been working for Maxie - both died in the house on the same night. The official cause of death was suicide, but the ghosts insist they were murdered and they need Alison to find out who killed them - or the next ghost in the guesthouse will be Alison herself....
I've got, for some reason, a bit of a kink for books set on the north-east US coast. I also have a recurring short-circuit in my brain that insists New Jersey is mostly north of New York City, despite having lived there for a month. *headdesk* Not on the shore, mind you. And the bit I was in was north of NYC. Still - this book is set on the Jersey Shore, which is south of NYC, but my imagination insists this is Maine-ish and that it therefore counts towards my kink. It doesn't hurt that the cover shows the haunted house as one of those huge and gorgeous mansions that everyone in books and movies lives and has adventures in. And Practical Magic. *g* Big enough for adventure, but cosy enough to come home to and be tucked up in bed - the perfect haunted house, really.
( Night of the Living Deed... )
Peril the First: Read four books, any length, that you feel fit (the very broad definitions) of R.I.P. literature. It could be King or Conan Doyle, Penny or Poe, Chandler or Collins, Lovecraft or Leroux… or anyone in between.
1. Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman
7 bedrooms. 4 baths. 2 ghosts. Newly divorced Alison Kerby wants a second chance for herself and her nine-year-old daughter, so she's returned to her home town on the Jersey Shore to transform a fixer-upper into a charming - and hopefully profitable - guesthouse. But when a bump on the head leaves her seeing not only stars but spirits, Alison realises the real challenge she's facing is out of this world. The two residing ghosts are Maxie Malone, the foul-tempered former owner of the house (who has definite opinions about Alsicon's design plans), and Paul Harrison, a private eye who'd been working for Maxie - both died in the house on the same night. The official cause of death was suicide, but the ghosts insist they were murdered and they need Alison to find out who killed them - or the next ghost in the guesthouse will be Alison herself....I've got, for some reason, a bit of a kink for books set on the north-east US coast. I also have a recurring short-circuit in my brain that insists New Jersey is mostly north of New York City, despite having lived there for a month. *headdesk* Not on the shore, mind you. And the bit I was in was north of NYC. Still - this book is set on the Jersey Shore, which is south of NYC, but my imagination insists this is Maine-ish and that it therefore counts towards my kink. It doesn't hurt that the cover shows the haunted house as one of those huge and gorgeous mansions that everyone in books and movies lives and has adventures in. And Practical Magic. *g* Big enough for adventure, but cosy enough to come home to and be tucked up in bed - the perfect haunted house, really.
( Night of the Living Deed... )
Peril the First: Read four books, any length, that you feel fit (the very broad definitions) of R.I.P. literature. It could be King or Conan Doyle, Penny or Poe, Chandler or Collins, Lovecraft or Leroux… or anyone in between.1. Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman
