When Aurora North’s editor assigns her an article about a museum exhibit featuring an ancient Egyptian mummy, despite the rumours about a curse striking down everyone who looks on its face, she’s not expecting anything more than a bunch of old artefacts.
But when the curse takes its first victim during the exhibit opening, Aurora’s trainee Jake convinces her their article will be so much more gripping if they can prove the curse is real, or identify the real killer, before calling the police.
So, with only a few hours to find the truth, no outside help, and a heap of suspects, will Aurora be able to dodge the curse and find the killer ... before the killer, or the curse, finds her?
I was fourteen when I attempted to write my first novel. Half finished, riddled with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and printed in pink ink, I gave it to my English teacher and asked her for feedback. A month later she handed it back to me and told me it was "good" without having read it.
How did I know she hadn't read it? The story was about an assassin for hire who disposed of her "kills" in her bathtub by dissolving their remains in sulphuric acid. I'm pretty sure if she had read it, one heck of a letter would have been sent home. I look back at this now and can see that the pink ink and poor spelling were the least of my problems.
With the lack of constructive criticism from my English teacher, I placed my novel writing on hold. I dallied mainly with typical teenage, angst-ridden poetry until several years later, on a romantic whim, I turned a boy I knew into a superhero, literarily (not literally) speaking. Because I'm super awesome, I included some of his friends and chronicled their superhero adventures as a birthday present to him.
My relationship with the superhero version of the boy lasted the completion of a dozen short stories. My relationship with the real life boy didn't. And I was writing pretty dang quick too!
There were a couple more plot twists but since they don't involve radioactive spiders, magical wardrobes or handsome Tolkien-esque elves they're not really worth talking about! So that's pretty much the yellow brick road to how I got here.
Aurora is a delightful character with brilliant powers of investigation, deduction, and knowing how to interview people. While her sidekick Jake is a good compliment to Aurora, in this book he got them into a real pickle because he didn't listen to Aurora's "NO" regarding the job. But it turned into a fast paced and interesting evening in spite of their rough beginning!
Great characters, interesting details and descriptions make these books so much fun. I look forward to more in this series! Great mystery with bits of humor, lovely and helpful parents, and hints of romance. Don't miss the fun series and this latest book!
Took me a little bit to get into this time - mostly I think because I find Jake annoying and don’t really understand why Aurora puts up with him. But I fully adore her parents and Aurora's relationship with them so I LOVED how they got to tag along and help out this time.
And I my favourite bit when Charlie tells Aurora her dad invited Constable Jarvis to Sunday dinner.
"Why?" "If I had to guess?" he asked and I nodded. " Competition" "Why would he feel the need to pit me against a police constable. Whatever the situation, surely he knows I'd win." HAHAHA Charlie laughed. "No. Competition for me." "oh. Right"
I love the way she gets around to the why's of it all. But I feel sometimes there is no way she could have made all those connections. Other times like today as I read I kind of seen it like a slide show. Keep them coming I would like to see where Aurora North makes it to.
Laughter is good medicine and this series made me laugh. Snarky humor, snappy dialogue, a smart protagonist stuck with a teenage intern sidekick, investigating ... the new exhibit at the museum? Yawn. But wait, it's a mummy, so is there a curse? Then someone is murdered, and Aurora North has a real crime to investigate. Campy, clean fun with plot twists to keep the reader guessing. Enjoy!
Fun mystery. Is it the curse of the mummy or just murder? Aurora investigates a death or two at the local museum during the opening of a new mummy exhibit. Aurora is a sassy and snarky as ever. Now if she could just get people to listen to her.
I loved every minute of this book. It kept me guessing, and laughing, right up to the very end. My only complaint is that now I'm all caught up on her books and have to wait for the next one to come out.