I'm a total sucker for a good cozy mystery. And this one has a fun paranormal twist to it. Check out an excerpt and my book review below from Damsel in a Dress by Kirsten Weiss. It's the fifth book in the A Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum series, but works as a standalone. Then check out the rest of the tour. Best of luck in the giveaway!
Bridesmaid duties can be deadly…
Maddie Kosloski has more than wedding cake on her plate. She’s managing her paranormal museum, helping her best friend Adele with wedding plans, and trying to prove that Adele’s vintage wedding dress is most definitely not haunted.
But when a bridesmaid turns up murdered, Maddie has to solve the crime to save the wedding. As her bouquet of suspects grows, and everyone’s alibis have the ring of truth, Maddie begins to doubt this wedding will go off without a hitch.
If you love laugh-out-loud mysteries, witty heroines, and a touch of the paranormal, you’ll love Damsel in a Dress, book 5 in the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum series of novels. Read this twisty cozy mystery today!
Read an excerpt:
The wedding gown ghosted into my museum on a slither of plastic and a shiver of air conditioning. Since it was a paranormal museum, I should have figured that was a sign, an omen, a warning.
But all I worried about that morning was stepping on the hem of my best friend’s newly altered dress. I carried it like it was an atom bomb, arms extended, treading carefully.
File that under the had-I-but-known category.
My assistant, Leo, looked up from behind the glass counter and slid one finger inside the collar of his Paranormal Museum tee. “Yo.” His black leather jacket was slung over the back of his tall chair. A shock of his ebony hair fell forward, obscuring his eyes.
The museum’s front door drifted shut behind me, and the bell jangled above it.
“Thanks for managing things.” I draped the dress over the counter. Unpeeling the staticky plastic from my jeans, I scanned the museum, alert for disasters.
Visitors wandered between the shelves displaying haunted objects and creepy dolls. Photos of long-dead murderers gazed impassively from their frames beneath the black-painted crown molding.
“How many decks did you sell?” I bounced in my low-heeled sandals. The museum was doing better, but we needed to increase our in-store sales.
“One.”
I deflated. Bummer. Still, I’d only been gone thirty minutes.
GD, the museum’s ghost detecting cat, rose from the haunted rocking chair in the corner of the main room. It swayed beneath the ebony cat’s weight.
“How’d you get stuck with dress duty anyway?” Leo asked.
“I’ll do anything for wedding cake.” Really, I will. Also, I was a bridesmaid, and one of my bridesmaidly duties was picking up the altered wedding gown. Cruelly and unfairly, I had not been selected for cake sampling duty.
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**My thoughts**
I do love a good cozy mystery and this one has the added bonus of a touch of the paranormal. You have quirky characters, most notably the animals, who play off of each other quite well without being over-the-top. I found myself wanting to solve the mystery but also just enjoying the interactions between everyone along the way. And I definitely had some big smiling moments, just absolutely enjoying every minute of this book.
And can I just say that I never could quite get the cat's name right? GD stands for Ghost Detector, but ... lol.
This is the fifth book in the series, but works well as a standalone. I definitely want to read the other ones, because there are just enough hints dropped throughout this book to whet the appetite for more. I've read other of her works, which I also enjoyed, so I know I would also like the others.
Thank you to the author and Goddess Fish for the requested review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Kirsten Weiss has never met a dessert she didn’t like, and her guilty pleasures are watching Ghost Whisperer re-runs and drinking red wine. The latter gives her heartburn, but she drinks it anyway.
Now based in Colorado Springs, CO, she writes genre-blending cozy mystery, supernatural and steampunk suspense, mixing her experiences and imagination to create vivid worlds of fun and enchantment.
If you like funny cozy mysteries, check out her Pie Town - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/pie-town-mysteries, Tea and Tarot -https://www.kirstenweiss.com/tea-and-tarot-mysteries, Paranormal Museum- http://www.kirstenweiss.com/the-perfectly-proper-paranormal-mus-1 and Wits’ End - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/doyle-cozy-mystery-series books. If you’re looking for some magic with your mystery, give the Witches of Doyle - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/doyle-witch-cozy-mysteries, Riga Hayworth - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/riga-hayworth-paranormal-mysteries and Rocky Bridges - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/rocky-bridges-mysteries books a try. And if you like steampunk, the Sensibility Grey - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/sensibility-grey-steampunk-suspense series might be for you.
Kirsten sends out original short stories of mystery and magic to her mailing list. If you’d like to get them delivered straight to your inbox, make sure to sign up for her newsletter at kirstenweiss.com
Feel free to follow her on Pinterest at KirstenWeiss - https://www.pinterest.com/kirstenweiss/
or on Bookbub - http://www.bookbub.com/authors/kirsten-weiss,
get in touch on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/kirsten.weiss/,
post a picture of this book to Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kirstenweissauthor/
and tag her @kirstenweissauthor,
or send her an email.
She’ll answer you personally…which may be a good or a bad thing, depending on your perspective.
Email: kweiss2001@kirstenweiss.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/kirsten.weiss/
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Bookbub: www.bookbub.com/authors/kirsten-weiss
Book Series: Sensibility Grey Steampunk Suspense - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/sensibility-grey-steampunk-suspense,
Tea and Tarot cozy mysteries - https://www.kirstenweiss.com/tea-and-tarot-mysteries,
the Pie Town cozy mysteries - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/pie-town-mysteries,
the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum cozy mysteries - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/the-perfectly-proper-paranormal-mus-1,
the Doyle Witch - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/doyle-witch-cozy-mysteries
and Doyle Cozy - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/doyle-cozy-mystery-series mystery novels,
the Riga Hayworth - http://www.kirstenweiss.com/riga-hayworth-paranormal-mysteries paranormal mysteries.
Kirsten Weiss will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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I'm loving this cover. So much detail.
ReplyDeleteI am blessed with a very talented cover designer! And I agree, she did a terrific job!
DeleteThanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThank you for hosting Damsel!
ReplyDeleteThe Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum series is what (I think) is called a “light paranormal” (though it’s very much a cozy mystery). I wanted to capture the way people really experience the paranormal, where you see or feel something but aren’t… quite… sure what it was. What do you think of books that straddle genres? That aren’t quite this or aren’t quite that?
Definitely a light paranormal without being full-blown paranormal. That's one of the things I enjoyed in it. I do like it when there is a straddling that makes sense, as this does. Not everything has to be tightly compartmentalized.
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