Setting: Sugarland, Tennessee Contemporary to 2016
Genre: paranormal cozy mystery
Ever since accidentally dumping the ashes of her ex-fiancé’s gangster ancestor into her garden, Verity Long has been able to see ghosts. Well, she sees Frankie (and other strong spirits) with no problem, but borrowing his power she can see and converse with weaker ghosts. She just needs to carry his urn, which contain the vestiges of his ashes, wherever she needs his help. That’s the gist of the series.
In this novella, Matthew Jackson, the ghost of a Union officer, needs Verity to retrieve the ghost of a necklace his ghost mother is wearing as she haunts the family estate. She had promised him the necklace to give to his wife when he married, and he has fallen in love with the ghost he wants to spend eternity with. He won’t go for it himself because his mother disowned him when he enlisted with the Yankees. So Verity agrees to assist her friend who is catering the Jackson’s annual Christmas party so she can speak to (the dead) Mrs. Jackson. Of course, she has to take Frankie’s urn, which one of the other servers decides will make a nice centerpiece for the tray of hors d’oeuvres she is circulating. Which makes Verity worry and yadda yadda yadda.
This isn’t a bad listen. The story is pretty good. It is helpful to read at least the first book of this series before reading this, but it isn’t absolutely necessary. The characters are interesting and the dialogue is often amusing. The humor leans toward situation comedy. I enjoyed the narration.