Gone With The Ghost by Erin McCarthy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The blurb: Bailey Burke has had a rough six months—it’s not easy thinking your romantic overtures toward your best friend caused him to kill himself. Except that’s exactly what happened. Ryan is very much dead, having shot himself with his own police-issued gun. Guilt and grief shouldn’t cause hallucinations though, but six months after Ryan went into the ground, Bailey is freaking out and swearing his ghost is standing in her kitchen. Which he is…
Ryan claims he didn’t commit suicide, but was murdered, and he needs Bailey to help him find his killer so he can earn his ticket out of purgatory. Ryan’s counting on a stairway to heaven, as opposed to wings, since that might be a little unmanly for a cop, even a dead one.
An expert in home design, with her own staging business, Bailey can tell you where to place a couch to improve flow and comfort, but solving a crime? Not her area of expertise. But with help from Ryan’s former partner, Marner, she is unraveling the mystery of what happened to Ryan that day… and unwittingly putting herself in grave danger.
My review: I’ve had an hankering to read a cozy mystery lately, so when I saw this ebook being offered for free, I thought I’d give it a go.
Imagine waking up one morning to find your dead best friend standing in your kitchen asking you to solve a murder, their murder. That’s the basis of this book.
Whilst the book was entertaining and amusing, the main character’s obsession with breasts (hers as well as every set she sees) really irritated me. It was over the top. Too much. I got sick of reading about double Ds and how tight or wet her t-shirt was. Enough already. It almost made me stop reading. Almost.
Right, now that’s out of my system, back to the review.
As I was saying, the book was entertaining and amusing, for the most part. I enjoyed the other aspects of the main character, and the other characters felt easy to identify, even the dead one. It was good to see the ghost own up to how he stuffed up his life too. That was important, in my opinion.
I especially liked the mystery. There were a couple of instances where I gasped and thought “no one would act like that … or do that”, if they were in the same situation. If I received a text message like that, there’s no way… (I don’t want to spoil it, so I’ll stop there.)
The mystery was well done, in my opinion. I didn’t make the connection. Didn’t come close, so that’s a good thing. I liked how the clues were there. It all came together in the end.
And something else I liked about the book, was the author’s writing style. Not the DD thing, but the way she strung sentences together. The humour and serious stuff mixed well together, complimented each other. It was well written. I felt connected enough to continue passed the irritating stuff and read right to the end. And I even feel connected enough to look into getting the second book and that’s saying something.
I recommend this book, especially if you are looking for something light-hearted to read.
