Family Skeleton Mysteries
★ ★ ★
Very "cute", entertaining, & easy to read...
Georgia & her daughter Madison, have moved back into the family home in order for Georgia to work as an "adjunct" English professor in one of the local colleges, where her (off on sabbatical) parents have tenure...
Upon arriving home, Georgia is greeted by Sid, the skeleton that has lived with the family since the night he saved her life when she was six years old...
Madison is in to Manga, so when she goes to a Manga convention @ the college where Georgia is employed, Sid goes along dressed as Desu-sama "Great Lord of Death". While there he sees a woman who for some reason frightens him, thus begins the mystery...
She turns out to be a professor at a local University and when Georgia & Sid go to visit her (in order to find out more about Sid's fear of her), they find her dead.....
This leads to the secondary investigation as to whom Sid was, how he got to be a skeleton, & what his connection was to the now dead professor....
The book held my interest, but there were major flaws in the story, gaps, that a good editor would have caught & questioned, which provided for a semi-sloppy ending (thus less one star)
It is a fun series and I am already reading the second in the series.....
Thank-you whomever it was who read this before me, it was in my "updates", and I'm glad you reviewed it... I had run out of entertaining things to read.
★ ★
The continuing story of Sid (skeleton), Georgia, Madison, & Deborah.....
Madison is in the school play Hamlet and decides to use Sid's skull for the prop of Yorik. Sid goes to school w/ Madison everyday.
One fateful afternoon Madison gets so busy that she forgets to bring Sid home and he spends the night in the auditorium where he overhears a murder (no body or evidence is found). As time goes by Sid recognizes the voice of the murderer, but never sees him.....
Georgia accompanies her friend Charles to a funeral for a former adjunct who committed suicide... there are clues here... The woman's ex-boyfriend does not show up and it turns out he had an interview at the HS where the play is, but no one has seen him since.
And so it goes.......
The very first thing I noticed was a GLARING Mistake in chapter one: Georgia (an adjunct English professor) is talking about where she works... She says"JTU", when In FACT She Works @ McQuaid.
Second, how everything ties the murderer & reasoning in to the murder without segue is poor writing & even poorer editing.
All of a sudden I'm reading about the school play and BAM, at the last minute it all ties in, but the important part of the investigation is treated as filler, without full explanation until the end..... thus minus 2 stars.
★ ★ ★
It is October. Sid Georgia, Madison are helping Deborah w/ McQuaid College's annual McHades Mansion Haunted House...
The college puts on the haunted house in conjunction with the McQuaid Quintent, 5 cousins that comply with the terms of the McQuaid will: Make use of the mansion, which was once the McQuaid Art School/Foundation or lose it to the heir, a missing uncle. The proceeds of the haunted house go to a McQuaid scholarship fund.
Sometime during the night, the body of a young woman (Kendall) is found in the haunted house having been bludgeoned to death... she was there w/ three other friends and Kendall was supposed to meet up with Linda, an old school acquaintance who was working inside the haunted mansion.
It turns out that Kendall was a part of a secret Facebook group (made up of herself & the three friends she was with) that would harass and bully random people as part of a game. Each instance of bullying would earn points. Kendall was well in the lead.... having literally harassed some young woman to commit suicide.
As Sid continues his internet search, he finds out that Kendall recently joined a 12-Step program and was in the process of making amends to those she harassed; one being Linda and another being Madison.
Madison, ignored the harassment and never let it bother her.... Linda on the other hand had agreed to secretly meet Kendall.... When the bloodied gloves from the crime turn up in Linda's dorm room, she is arrested for the murder of Kendall.....
Meanwhile, Georgia's parents have returned home early from their sabbatical, Deborah is having to decide between the local cop & McQuaid College head of security, and Georgia has begun dating "Brownie" another adjunct professor/carnival worker, who turns out to be the son of the missing heir.... and so it goes on.
Light, entertaining, and full of very interesting information about cyber-bullying....
