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.
Publication Date : September 29, 2020
Publisher : Berkley
Print Length : 299 pages
ASIN : B07Y7MHZQR
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/3na3X4X
My Review:
Avery Morgan moves to Ohio as the new business manager of the Portage Path Women's Club. The membership numbers keep going down to the point the club is now endangered. Her new boss, Muriel, is the President of the club and quite difficult. The only person on the board not to approve Avery's hiring is doing everything she can to make Avery's life miserable. The author did a spectacular job writing a pretty mean character in Muriel.
Muriel managed to make everyone's lives nightmarish. Her words and actions caused blood to boil, mean thoughts to enter minds, and, for someone, the delight of her demise. As a reader, Muriel is one of those characters that you'll love to hate. She may even remind a reader of someone they've encountered in real life. Muriel was horrible and the author wrote her in such a way that you couldn't help but feel bad for those she abused, as well as angry on their behalf. Muriel isn't the only character written this well.
Avery, Oz, Jack, Clemmie, the rest of the club, and all the side character were equally written well. You could feel Avery's frustration at Muriel, her sadness at the treatment of the kitchen staff, and she disbelief in her ability to see ghosts. Oz didn't make many appearances but he was written as a well-respected and capable police officer with what could be a romantic side. Jack is a restorationist with secrets, yet he's willing to aid Avery in her quest for justice against Muriel. Clemmie was written with period characteristics, clothes, and speech. I was able to visualize her and "hear" her talk in a way we don't hear anymore.
The world building was great. I envisioned myself right smack dab in the middle of the mansion with Avery, Clemmie, and the rest of the club members. I enjoyed the descriptive text, providing me with enough description to create the scenes myself, Not having enough doesn't allow me to connect to the characters, the setting, or the book and having too much description makes me feel like they were included as filler. This books had the perfect amount of description.
The mystery itself was intricate, full of twists, turns, and red herrings. I enjoyed trying to figure out who may have been the culprit. I had a feeling I knew who the murderer was but I was never convinced I had the clues in order. The author did a great job masquerading the guilty person and not making things obvious or too easy to guess. This is a fun who-dun-it and I look forward to the next book.
I was provided a copy of this book to read.
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