Carole´s Monday: Garters, ghosts and wedding toasts

 

Author: Angie Fox

Narrator: Hollie Jackson
Title: Garters, Ghosts and Wedding Toasts

Series: Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries #15

Genre: Paranormal, Mystery, Cozy mystery
Format: Audiobook
Published:  February 27, 2026
Where I Got It: My shelf (Audible)

Summary: 

When Verity Long agrees to be her sister’s maid of honor, she expects wedding cake and champagne—not a dead hostess, a cursed honeymoon suite, and a ghostly bride reliving her tragic final moments. With a killer on the loose, a ballroom full of restless spirits, and Frankie stirring up trouble with a rogue ghost hunter, Verity must race to uncover the truth before Melody’s dream wedding becomes her worst nightmare.

Review:

Yayy book 15! Been waiting so long for this one (*cough* not that long *cough*)

Note......read the other books before this one. Lots of references, etc. 

The time has come for Verity's sister to get married! Verity hopes it will be a calm and beautiful wedding weekend filled with cake and champagne. But alas, that will not be the case.....the honeymoon suite is cursed, there is a ghostly bride reliving her tragic moments, a killer is on the loose, Frankie is causing trouble, and secrets everywhere. It will be up to Verity and team to find the truth and stop Melody's man from being the next victim. 

Always a blast. I simply love Verity and her crew. 

Loved the mysteries. So many red herrings and so many people (and ghosts) with motives. Who knows! I had zero idea until close to the end.

I'm still a little on the fence about our new narrator. This is her second one, and I am still feeling pouty about it. I loved our old voice, but this one is doing okay. Maybe the next book I'll finally settle in with her voice. Sighs. 

But yes, so much fun. Great characters. A fun local change. Wedding. Love. Ghosts. What more can you ask for?

Stamping this with 4 stars. 

Reading Challenges

- Audiobook #8

Audio: Schemes and Scandals by Kelley Armstrong

Narrated by: Kate Handford

Release date: 11-27-24

Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher: K.L.A. Fricke Inc

Categories: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense/own

I am enjoying this series so much that I have to listen to the novellas.

It is Christmas time and Mallory has settled in Edinburgh 1869. She gets the chance to meet Dickens. They have a new case involving a widow and the intimate letters she sent that are missing.

And, well I really like Mallory and Grey together. I want them together!

Great narration, great story.

It’s Mallory Atkinson’s first Christmas in Scotland. Victorian Scotland, that is. Also, as the twenty-first-century detective learns, Christmas really isn’t a thing in Victorian Scotland. It’s all about Hogmanay. But her boss, Dr. Duncan Gray, treats her to an early gift of tickets to the event of the a Charles Dickens reading. There, they bump into Lady Inglis—the lovely widow who has sent Gray sexy letters trying to entice him back to her bed.

Lady Inglis introduces Mallory to Dickens—the meeting of a lifetime—but in return she wants their help. She’s being blackmailed. Someone stole letters she wrote to another lover and is threatening to publish them.

Mallory isn’t sure what to make of Lady Inglis, but no woman deserves that, so she insists on taking the case with or without Gray’s help. Growing tension between them soon tells Mallory that Gray is hiding a secret of his own. She has until Hogmanay to uncover the blackmailer…and, hopefully, to put things right with Gray so they can enjoy the holiday together.

Audio: Disturbing the dead by Kelley Armstrong

By: Kelley Armstrong

Narrated by: Kate Handford

Series: A Rip Through Time Novella Duo, Book 3

Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins

Release date: 05-07-24

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Categories: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense /own

Mallory and Grey are invited to a mummy unwrapping. Mallory finds it quite distasteful, as does Grey, but they go. And soon they have a murder to solve.

A mummy, theft, the Edinburgh underworld. Mallory gets busy in this one. She also contemplates her life here and if she will ever get back. And if she does get back, well after time here she would sure miss it.

She has gone from housemaid to assistant. She has made friends, and she also keeps getting into trouble.

I enjoy this series a great deal. I am almost caught up with everything now...soon!

An interesting historical fiction mystery series that is worth a go.

Great narration too!

Victorian Scotland is becoming less strange to modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson. Though inhabiting someone else’s body will always be unsettling, even if her employers know that she’s not actually housemaid Catriona Mitchell, ever since the night both of them were attacked in the same dark alley 150 years apart. Mallory likes her job as assistant to undertaker/medical examiner Dr. Duncan Gray, and is developing true friends―and feelings―in this century.

So, understanding the Victorian fascination with death, Mallory isn't that surprised when she and her friends are invited to a mummy unwrapping at the home of Sir Alastair Christie. When their host is missing when it comes time to unwrap the mummy, Gray and Mallory are asked to step in. And upon closer inspection, it’s not a mummy they’ve unwrapped, but a much more modern body.

Game Changer by Rachel Reid

Series: Game Changers (#1)

Format: 368 pages, Paperback

Published: November 26, 2024 by Carina Press

Romance/library

I have not watched the tv series, I would have to get HBO again, oh well one day. Anyway, the library had this one, and I guess more so I gave it a go.

Lots of time books show how spicy they are and I am all, srsly? They did it once after 300 pages,it does not deserve 4 chilis. BUT, this one, well that one needs all the chilis.

Scott is gay, but he is also a hockey player and he keeps his flings brief and out of country. Until he meets Kip who is cute and makes smoothies. They have this secret affair, but we all know secrets are not fun and Kip wants more.

I enjoyed it, it was an easy read. Lots of spice, hockey and everything will work out.

Pro hockey star Scott Hunter knows a good thing when he sees it. So, when a smoothie made by juice bar barista Kip Grady precedes Scott breaking his on-ice slump, he’s desperate to recreate the magic...and to get to know the sexy, funny guy behind the counter.

Kip knew there was more to Scott’s frequent visits than blended fruit, but he never let himself imagine being invited back to Scott’s penthouse. Or kissed with reckless abandon, nevermind touched everywhere all at once. When it happens it’s red-hot, incredible and frequent, but also only on Scott’s terms and always behind his closed apartment doors.

Scott needs Kip in his life, but with playoff season approaching, the spotlight on him is suddenly brighter than ever. He can’t afford to do anything that might derail his career…like introducing the world to his boyfriend. Kip is ready to go all-in with Scott—but how much longer will he have to remain a secret?