The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum By Kirsten Weiss

by Cynthia Chow

Details on how to win a copy of this book at the end of the review.

A disagreement with her CEO over ethics – mainly, she had them, her company did not – cost Maddie Kosloski her international management job overseas and sent her back to the States. Having exhausted her bank account living in San Francisco for the last seven months, Maddie was forced to take up her aunt's offer to live at a bargain rate back in her hometown of San Benedetto. The central California town is renowned for their Zinfandel grapes – second only to Napa Valley – the annual arson of their Christmas Cow, and the Paranormal Museum. It is for the latter that Maddie finds herself reluctantly managing due to the manipulative pleas of her best friend, Adele Nakamoto.

Rumors have that the creepy edifice containing a Creepy Doll Room, Fortune Telling Room, and even a living Ghost Detecting Cat is haunted, but it's the very corporal body of Christine Huntington that Maddie finds in the connecting tea room. Adele's wanting to drag the body out could be attributed to shock, were it not also for the unfortunate connection of Christy having last being seen in a very compromising position with Adele's (now) ex-fiancé, Michael St. James.

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The news only gets worse when Maddie discovers that her high school nemesis Laurel Hammer is the investigating detective. High school never seems to go away, and the Hammer’s hostility only seems to have increased since her past stuffing-Maddie-into-lockers harassment. A bookie contractor, irritated but sexy motorcycle shop owner, Christy’s taxidermist ex-boyfriend, and touring ghost hunters are just a selection of the cast populating this very fun mystery. Alerted by her GD Cat, Mad herself becomes obsessed with a photo of Cora M. McBride, a woman convicted of her husband’s hanging in the late 1800s and whose case of injustice haunts Mad as much as Cora’s spirit may haunt the museum.

Image source: Midnight Ink

The title of this debut series emphasizes Mad’s intention on making the museum a “real” museum, with exhibits and promotions that will have it surpassing the flaming Christmas Cow as the biggest attraction. She is on her own personal journey to feel equal to her overachieving siblings, one a Bolshoi opera singer and the other a cultural attaché in Moscow. That Maddie is finding herself most at home in San Benedetto is an adjustment, but one that she is slowing accepting. This is a delightfully well-written and very entertaining new mystery series, full of humor and sprinkled with hints of the paranormal. Readers will have much to look forward to as they follow the adventures of this smart and very relatable heroine.

To enter to win a copy of The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “museum,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen March 12, 2016. If entering via email please include your mailing address.

Use this link to purchase the book:

The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum

Cynthia Chow is the branch manager of Kaneohe Public Library on the island of Oahu. She balances a librarian lifestyle of cardigans and hair buns with a passion for motorcycle riding and regrettable tattoos (sorry, Mom).