Title: The Readaholics and the Gothic Gala
Author: Laura DiSilverio
Publisher: NAL
Release Date: August 2, 2016
Pages: 304
Book Source: Paperback
Reading the gothic classic Rebecca already has the Readaholics spooked, and the chills only get worse when someone in town actually gives up the ghost….
Amy-Faye Johnson has her hands full coordinating the Celebration of Gothic Novels in Heaven, Colorado. The festivities start off smoothly, but the weekend is soon cursed with large egos, old resentments, and uninvited guests. Matters become truly grave when a dead body is found at the gothic-themed costume party.
The out-of-town authors claim not to know the victim, but Amy-Faye has doubts. With skeletons turning up in all of the suspects’ closets, Amy-Faye and the Readaholics must tap into their knowledge of gothic literature to find a killer who lurks in the shadows…
My Review:
This is the first book I’ve read in the Book Club Mystery series, and I really enjoyed it. There was so much about the characters that I really liked, the fact that Amy-Faye and her boyfriend, Hart, had an adult relationship was a big one. They enjoyed each other, and were not acting like so many couples who have recently gotten together in other books that I’ve read. They were not constantly questioning if their relationship should be happening, or pushing away from each other in one chapter to only be passionately in love in the next.
The group of women in the book club were also a wonderfully diverse bunch of strong women. There was not a wishy-washy female among them, which is so refreshing. And their strengths helped out in various ways while solving the mystery.
Also Amy-Faye actually worked at her job, unlike a lot of cozies where the main character owns a business, but never actually seems to be there. Her job as a party planner, puts her in contact with a lot of people and areas of buildings she might not normally have access to, so this helped a lot in finding clues.
The mystery itself had many twists and red herrings, which made it a fun puzzle to try and solve. And the extra twist right at the end was something I did not see coming. DiSilverio also added other crimes into the book, which helped to make the murder harder to solve.
I don’t think you need to read this series in order since DiSilverio added enough context to previous storylines and characters that you were easily able to figure out what was going on. But with any series it is always enjoyable to start from the beginning because you get to watch the characters grow, and finding a series part way through is always good because that means you have more books to read right away!