High Spirits

  In this blog post, I reviewed Carol J Perry’s High Spirits, the second installment in the Haunted Haven paranormal series. This mystery will give you chills and plenty of intrigue. For Maureen Doherty, the newest owner of Haven House Inn, it’s around Christmas time. She needed a way to rack in the dough to bring people into her hotel and the Paramount Theater in Haven, Southern Florida. So she cooked up an idea with Ted Carr, the hotel’s bartender and chef, to serve dinner and Christmas movies. While they make a profit, Doreen dealt with the mystery of who killed Buddy Putnam 50 years ago, whose ghost had haunted the theater, and then the murder on who killed Decklin Monroe, the film projector. Were both crimes connected somehow? It’s up to Maureen, and some friendly ghosts, and her hotel staff, to put together this chilling mystery, piece by piece, before it might be too late in the end. 

This intriguing Christmas paranormal cozy is bone-cold as winter snow and will keep you guessing. I cared for Maureen, who had a lot on her hands with the hotel’s restoration, a budding romance, and being swept into another mystery in her new hometown. I do think that Ted could be good for her. I loved Haven, Florida as the perfect seaside town for the location, and the Christmas season for the theme with visual scenic settings. 

I rated this book, three out of five stars, because it left me wondering more about this cozy mystery. If you love chilling paranormal cozies with non-stop dramatic action, plenty of suspense, and goose-pimpling twists and turns, you would love High Spirits. This book is recommended for fans of Charlaine Harris’s and Emily Brightwell’s paranormal cozies to name a few, and those who love Christmas-themed mysteries.