The Ghost and the Haunted Mansion (Haunted Bookshop Mysteries, No. 5)

I loved this book! I hated to see it end...best in the series so far.

This is the latest book in the Haunted Bookshop series featuring female-sleuth Penelope Thornton-McClure. The story centers around the home of recently deceased Miss Timothea Todd, which is reported to be haunted. In fact Penelope discovers the body of Miss Todd while making a book delivery. Penelope thinks the woman looks like she has been scared to death! The book follows Penelope and her Ghost PI, Jack Shepard as they follow clues and try to solve the mystery of the haunted mansion. I like this well-written series and enjoy the relationship between Penelope and Jack. I also enjoy Penelope's friends Fiona, Brainert and Seymour. I didn't think the book was too scary but it was suspenseful. I would recommend it, and I'm looking forward to the next one in the series.

This was the first book that I read in the series, and I was hooked immediately. Our ghost, Jack Shepherd, is pure 1940's Raymond Chandler, and is the perfect companion for our heroine, twenty-first century bookstore owner Penelope McClure. I'm now going back and reading them in order, and I love that Jack has his own ongoing mystery. The supporting cast of Pen's son and aunt, the local mailman, small town political people and other town figures are fleshed out nicely but don't "hog the limelight." I picked this book up when I discovered that Alice Kimberly is a nom de plume of Cleo Coyle, whose Coffeehouse series is a favorite. The series are entirely different, but both are wonderful - more, please!

I was late to this series and found it accidentally, but I am a huge fan of Cleo Coyle's coffehouse mysteries and didn't realize that she also writes this series. I then read all of the prior books and really liked them. This one was my favorite one so far. The mystery definitely had a different twist and as always I really liked the interaction of the two main characters. This is truly a "cozy" book to curl up with!

It seemed like I'd been waiting a long time for this latest book in this series, but when I checked dates, it's only been 8 mos. since the previous one. They get better all the time. The plot is this one is more complex, and it wasn't even clear there was a murder until close to the end, not that there wasn't plenty of action and suspense. The relationship between Penelope, the bookshop co-owner and Jack, the resident ghost has grown. An element of the plot was one of the characters wanted to exorcise all the town's ghosts which made Pen worried, as she's come to depend on Jack, not only to help solve the town's mysteries, but as a friend/confidant. I love this series and will be counting the months until there's another installment.