Hello everyone!
Listen, Dina Marie knows how to write these, okay, and she's NOT giving up.
There's two more that are releasing this year (at least), and that's super exciting to me as someone who found the author completely by accident on Booksirens one day.
I was captivated by the idea that this woman, who's been in an abusive marriage, can see and speak to ghosts, and she ends up helping them pass on.
... sounds very Ghost Whisperer, doesn't it?
Can you tell I grew up watching these shows LOL
But enough about that!
Let's dive right into the story of Ghost Trip.
Clara Kelly, William, Boy, and Ghost Cat are back, and it's finally time to confront Clara's own personal ghosts.
She's leaving her B&B and Salem to travel back to her old stomping grounds and face her former sister-in-law in court, because sissy dearest wants to ruin Clara for all she's worth.
Because she refuses to just let it go. She really needs to take a few lessons from Elsa, honestly.
Clara's super nervous, especially after she arrives to the courthouse and her lawyer bails. Naturally, her dead husband's family blackmailed him, so now she's on her own, but luckily she catches a break when court adjourns for lunch, and she finds herself in a little bistro.
There, some repairs are underway, it's freezing cold, the food is of absolutely questionable quality, and the one private room is taken by some sort of businessman, too.
Then said businessman literally drops dead, and when the police arrive the bistro becomes an active crime scene.
This is about the time when Clara notices the ghost, of course. The dead man's ghost, in case you're wondering.
It's actually a really lively and colourful scene filled with characters that paint a picture of today's society that you could just as easily find in an actual diner, but at the end you figure out who did it and why.
Them repairs? Yeah, those are just hokey.
The repairman? Didn't want the truth of his extra curricular activities getting out.
The dead guy? Not a businessman, a divorce lawyer, and his poor wife now has to keep going without him.
But the best part though?
When Clara finally gets back to court and goes to speak to the judge presiding over her case, Ghost Cat trips the man, who bangs his head, and is literally down for the count. ANOTHER judge takes over, one who HASN'T shaken hands with Clara's former in-laws, and she takes one look at the case and goes, LOL, you people are idiots.
Because, essentially, it boils down to: Clara's literally signing everything back to them except the Salem property, when she could have sued them for millions.
The kicker? One of the other people at the diner when the lawyer died is a friend of the former mother-in-law, and she's the one who suggests just dropping it and moving on. The sister tries being a spoiled brat, but her mom is like, honey let's just LEAVE.
With her past now firmly behind her (or so we hope!) and her future secured, Clara, William and their two animal companions return home victorious. An added brownie point here is that they stayed at her old home, and she managed to solve what happened to the neighbour's son, who went missing when she was just a child - and who she didn't figure out until now she could see even then, but people thought she'd made him up, since THEY couldn't see ghosts.
(It's such a sad story, the poor boy ... his dad deserves hell for feeding him peanut butter knowingly when the kid was allergic.)
The most important thing, however: CLARA LEARNS HER MOTHER COULD SEE GHOSTS, TOO.
After seven books, we are FINALLY getting into the thick of it, and I'm SO here for the ride that's about to happen.
That, and Sebastian, the dude who I'm all eh about since I'm pro-William, even if he's a ghost LOL, agrees to come to Thanksgiving dinner, at which point Clara's going to tell him the truth about her ghost seeing abilities.
It's either going to go brilliantly or will end in spectacular disaster, we'll have to see what happens in Grateful Ghost!
The case itself is fairly straightforward and nothing too fancy, the important bit of the story really focusing on a simple fact:
how Clara's found and built family rallies around her. From William to Ghost Cat, it's heartening to see.
It's also incredibly illuminating to watch a literal multimillionaire whine about losing a property when they have so. many. others.
Thankfully, that chapter's closed now, and we can hopefully focus on the future! With Sebastian? Possibly!
Dina Marie does it again, writing colourful characters (main and side) and murder mysteries that entertain just as much as they reveal how easily people slip into murder. And that's probably the most important lesson of all.
xx
*image not mine
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