The Skeletons of Scarborough House cover art

The Skeletons of Scarborough House

Chapelwick Mysteries, Book 1

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The Skeletons of Scarborough House

By: Kitty French
Narrated by: Cat Gould
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Welcome to Chapelwick, a leafy English town in the hills of Shropshire, where chocolate fudge cake comes served with a side of murder.

Scarborough House is haunted, and it's not doing much for Donovan Scarborough's investment portfolio. No one wants to buy a place with levitating crockery, or (the wrong kind of) rhythmic pounding throughout the night.

Luckily, Melody "I-See-Dead-People" Bittersweet has just launched her own ghostbusting agency with best friend Marina, geeky, keen Arthur, and a one-eared pug called Lestat. They're quick to take the case, even if it has already sort of (definitely) been given to Leo Dark, Melody's rakish, despicable ex.

Melody soon discovers the resident phantoms are three brothers, one who was murdered at 20, while the others lived to old age. But did the family exile the right person, or did the true killer get away with it?

Donovan Scarborough doesn't care who solves the case. Whoever gets rid of the ghosts gets paid.

Can Melody and her new crew untangle the mystery, and bring the brothers peace, before Leo? Or will his distracting sexiness and Melody's bonkers family cause the agency to fall at its first hurdle?

Contains mature themes.

©2016 Kitty French (P)2018 Tantor Cosy Literature & Fiction Mystery Haunted Ghost Fiction Funny Witty Comedy Suspense
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An entertaining idea and an engaging story with some fun characters and a few funny incidents.

I thought there was far more introspective narrative from the first person character than necessary, and it rather came across as waffle from time to time.

The writer messed up some basic research - a 1973 Transit van would have door locks which were large black plungers on the top of the inner door moulding, and NO Transit van had sliding driver and passenger doors. If Kitty wanted to keep two celebrities names in the finished novel, rather than use them as "placeholders" in a draft, then she could at least have used them for humour. And one didn't even need to be named, as he wasn't a character in the story.

Entertaining but wordy

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Nice idea for a book, and easy listen. If you like the TV series Ghosts, it's a similar idea to that. The thing that ruined it for me was the main character was supposed to be 27, but the narrator made her sound like someone in their 50s from the 1800s. Which also made it hard to follow if it was the mum, daughter or grandma speaking as they all sounded the same. I don't think I would buy the next book unless they changed the narrator.

Lovely story

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A bit like Ab Fab meets the Forsyth Saga but with a mix of likeable, loathsome and laugh out loud characters, it held my attention with the right blend of family drama, back stories of deceit and loss and Melody driving Babs on a ghost busting side splitting comedy of terrors.

Ghostly, ghastly and guffaws going on

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I found the narration irritating to listen to and reverted to reading the book more than I might have done. The voice/accent was forced and false and the male characters in particular were cringeworthy. I would never buy another audible with this narrator.
The story, however, although a bit silly, was lively and amusing. A good very light read!

Irritating narration

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I wasn’t expecting to love this book but I did. It had humour, mystery, ghosts and a bit of romance. Look forward to listening to the next one

Good fun

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