It’s Book Review Thursday. Come back each week to get a peek inside what authors I love and what storylines inspire me.
These Haunts are Made for Walking by Rose Pressey
Ripley Van Raden has come home to Devil’s Moon, Kentucky to become the new head librarian at Bilson Library, and a haunted tour guide by night. People have mentioned for years that there is a ghost in the library, but Ripley’s never seen it…until now.
Her official first day at the library brings out a late nineteenth century ghost named Annie Gibson, who used to be the head librarian, and is actually buried in the small graveyard out front. But what really freaks Ripley out are the text messages she’s getting from Annie, who tries to warn her about a murder.
Ripley also has to contend with a very surly assistant, Leslie, who seems to resent Ripley’s presence there. She meets the Book Wormers, a group of four ladies who meet in one of the upstairs rooms. But this week’s meeting doesn’t start out well: three of the ladies, Katherine, Sue and Dana, have a beef with Marion, the fourth one, who has just bought the buildings their businesses are in. Marion has raised the rent for all of them, and they aren’t happy about it.
When Marion falls down the back stairs and ends up dead, it seems to be an accident. But Annie, the resident ghost, keeps sending Ripley messages, telling her it was murder, and urging her to investigate. The police chief seems to think that Ripley is somehow involved, but his young officer, Brannon, believes she’s innocent. Ripley isn’t sure what to do. She can’t tell her best friend, Tammy, that a ghost is sending her text messages; she’s sure Tammy would have her committed.
Ripley can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching her, and she begins to see a ghost popping up in various places around town. Mrs. Clatterbuck, who lives near the cemetery where Ripley’s haunted tours end, warns her that the dead don’t like to be disturbed. Could the ghosts be stalking her, trying to scare her into stopping her tours? She really starts to feel unwanted in her hometown when library patrons start telling her that she needs to leave town.
When she finds a note in a book that appears to be a confession to Marion’s murder, Ripley follows Annie’s leads and starts asking questions. And when the notes get personal, she begins to worry that she is next on the killer’s list. Can Ripley, Tammy, Annie and Brannon find the killer in time before someone else is killed? Or will they be too late?
I’ve read several of Ms. Pressey’s books before. She has written some wonderful series (The Halloween LaVeau series and the Maggie, P.I. series are two of my personal favorites), so I was very excited to get my hands on this one. How cool would it be to get text messages from a ghost? While the premise of the story was good, I had a difficult time at various points in the story because of inconsistences. That said, I didn’t figure out who the killer was until it was revealed in the story. That is a definite plus in my book, because I am pretty good at figuring these things out. Overall, I would give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars, and I look forward to the next book in this series (or the Halloween series and the Maggie series!).
Pick up These Haunts are Made for Walking on these sites:
Amazon: These Haunts are Made for Walking
Barnes & Noble: These Haunts are Made for Walking
Author Teresa Watson 