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byslantedlightHurrah - 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 seemed like a good place to begin my challenge - it's definitely ghost-based, but they turn out to be friendly ghosts, and the heroine is strong and feisty, and it didn't seem likely to be too scary. I'll work my way up. *g* I liked the overall premise (so did the publishers I presume, because it's the first in a series). It's not a new premise, but that's okay cos its a fun one - resident ghosts that you just have to live with!
That said, I wasn't mad-keen on the heroine herself - she was so snarky and witty that I thought she was actually mean to people, and disrespectful in a way that made her a little stupid. You're accused of murder, and you're sarcastic to the police investigating your case? When you've gone to them? You go and visit someone you've met just a couple of times before in their office, and you lean back and put your feet up on their desk? And actually it's, again, the police detective who's investigating your case? No! Wait until you're friends and then do it. I could see most of the scenes in the fine old tv-comedy-crime-series style, with the wisecracking rebellious but always right gumshoe winning out over the less-bright-but-what-can-you-do police... The author has written screenplays actually, I wonder if she writes for television?
(Have just gone searching to find out, and although I still don't know whether the author writes for tv, I have found out that the author is a he - I wonder why I thought it was a she? And does it matter? Hmmn...!)
So, was this a spooky RIP read? No, not really... the ghosts were friendly, with a hint of other-side about them (I liked the idea of Paul's Ghosternet). I am wondering why solving their murders didn't mean they were released into the afterlife - that's the classic resolution to a murder mystery with ghosts, surely! But then it'd be a far less interesting second-book-in-the-series without them... *g* There was alot going on in the story. Apart from the murder mystery and ghosts, there was a big DIY instructions component to the story, which I only got bored with occasionally. There were lots of characters-that-might-be-the-villain. The good-guy characters were all quite cool, if a little stereotyped, in the same I-could-see-them-on-tv kind of way. But I felt like I knew them by the end of the book, and I can see that this might be a really popular series. If I come across the second book I'd take a look, though I probably won't seek it out.
And it didn't scare me out of going to bed. *g*
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 seemed like a good place to begin my challenge - it's definitely ghost-based, but they turn out to be friendly ghosts, and the heroine is strong and feisty, and it didn't seem likely to be too scary. I'll work my way up. *g* I liked the overall premise (so did the publishers I presume, because it's the first in a series). It's not a new premise, but that's okay cos its a fun one - resident ghosts that you just have to live with!
That said, I wasn't mad-keen on the heroine herself - she was so snarky and witty that I thought she was actually mean to people, and disrespectful in a way that made her a little stupid. You're accused of murder, and you're sarcastic to the police investigating your case? When you've gone to them? You go and visit someone you've met just a couple of times before in their office, and you lean back and put your feet up on their desk? And actually it's, again, the police detective who's investigating your case? No! Wait until you're friends and then do it. I could see most of the scenes in the fine old tv-comedy-crime-series style, with the wisecracking rebellious but always right gumshoe winning out over the less-bright-but-what-can-you-do police... The author has written screenplays actually, I wonder if she writes for television?
(Have just gone searching to find out, and although I still don't know whether the author writes for tv, I have found out that the author is a he - I wonder why I thought it was a she? And does it matter? Hmmn...!)
So, was this a spooky RIP read? No, not really... the ghosts were friendly, with a hint of other-side about them (I liked the idea of Paul's Ghosternet). I am wondering why solving their murders didn't mean they were released into the afterlife - that's the classic resolution to a murder mystery with ghosts, surely! But then it'd be a far less interesting second-book-in-the-series without them... *g* There was alot going on in the story. Apart from the murder mystery and ghosts, there was a big DIY instructions component to the story, which I only got bored with occasionally. There were lots of characters-that-might-be-the-villain. The good-guy characters were all quite cool, if a little stereotyped, in the same I-could-see-them-on-tv kind of way. But I felt like I knew them by the end of the book, and I can see that this might be a really popular series. If I come across the second book I'd take a look, though I probably won't seek it out.
And it didn't scare me out of going to bed. *g*
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
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Date: Saturday, 5 September 2015 11:01 pm (UTC)I'm not sorry I read it, though! *g*