Dead and Breakfast

November 14, 2016
Melanie West, the heroine of this enjoyable series launch from Kingsbury (Mulled Murder), quits her financial analyst job in Portland, Ore., in order to help Liza Harris, the grandmother who raised her, convert a mansion to an inn located in coastal Sully’s Landing. Melanie and Liza’s efforts to save money by renovating the reputedly haunted house themselves lead to their discovery of a night-gowned skeleton inside a bedroom wall, delaying the inn’s planned opening. The Sully’s Landing police identify the remains as those of Angela Morelli, the wife of the previous owner, Vince Morelli, but no one is very forthcoming with details about the couple. Impatient with the slow police investigation, Melanie and Liza start their own sleuthing into the Morellis. Those who don’t care for ghosts will be pleased to find that this cozy’s focus is firmly on the living, in particular, Liza and Melanie’s partnership and Melanie’s continuing secret search for her long-lost mother. Agent: Paige Wheeler, Folio Literary Management.

November 15, 2016
A divorcee and her grandmother are trying to open a B&B on the Oregon coast, but their plan is derailed by a shocking discovery.Melanie West and her grandmother Liza Harris have been working to get the large, possibly haunted house they've purchased ready for a grand opening. While scraping old wallpaper off a bedroom wall, they uncover a hidden room complete with a long-dead tenant. Officer Ben Carter is sympathetic to their plight, but they must discontinue their work until the low-priority case can be investigated. Desperate to keep things on track, the women decide to do some sleuthing on their own. The corpse, it seems, is that of Angela Morelli, the house's previous owner, who vanished, possibly with a lover, leaving her disabled husband, Vincent, to ponder her fate. After Vincent's recent death, his son was only too happy to sell the place quickly. While they work on the areas of the Merry Ghost Inn the police allow them into, Melanie and Liza plot to meet the wealthy Sullivan family, who lived there before the Morellis. Several other men, one of whom may have been Angela's mysterious lover, are also on their list to investigate. Melanie, meanwhile, has her hands full trying to trace her mother, who vanished many years ago in England, and fending off the advances of her ex-husband, who wants her back. Could it be her ex who almost ran her over in a parking lot and then tried to force her off the road? When a woman who strongly resembles Melanie is murdered, she and Liza are forced to reckon with what looks like a determined killer's unwelcome attention. The prolific Kingsbury (Mulled Murder, 2013, etc.) launches a new series with likable characters and a beautiful setting but very little to set this cozy apart from many others.

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December 1, 2016

Freeing herself of her old life and her ex-husband, Melanie West moves to beautiful Sully's Landing on the Oregon coast to open a B&B with her grandmother Liza Harris. Neither of them is prepared when they find a corpse in a hidden closet as they are renovating a bedroom. The skeleton is identified as Angela Morelli, wife of the house's former owner. With their renovations on hold, Mel and Liza launch their own probe into the case to expedite the opening of the inn. Helped along by the presence of a laughing ghost, Mel and Liza question various suspects, but their amateur sleuthing may turn deadly. VERDICT The author of the "PennyFoot Hotel" mysteries begins a promising cozy series with this lighthearted and charming title. Who wouldn't want to open a B&B on the Oregon coast after reading Kingsbury's delightful mystery?

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2016
Melanie West gave up a lucrative finance career in Portland to open a bed-and-breakfast with her grandmother Liza in a small Oregon town. While stripping wallpaper in the house, they are shocked to find a woman's body behind a hidden wall. With the remodeling project on hold while police investigate, Melanie and Liza start poking around on their own, asking people in town about the previous owners of the house. The body, they learn, was the former owner's wife, long thought to have abandoned her husband after an accident left him wheelchair-bound. Meanwhile, a laughing ghost in the house seems to be leaving clues to help solve the mystery. Kingsbury's crime-solving pairyoungish granddaughter and eccentric senior are wonderfully appealing, whether they are ferreting out the town's secrets or dealing with the grief in their own lives. Fans of M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin series will find lots of similarities here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)