by: Carmen Radtke
Series: Adriana and Genie Darling Mystery
Genre: Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Release Date: May 29, 2024
Could quaint Cobblewood Cove be a hotbed for black magic?
Genie and her ghostly great-great-aunt Adriana have been too busy with their gelato business and helping with the restoration of the old speakeasy to notice that something isn’t quite right in their small town.
Until pranks with touch of the macabre haunt the neighborhood, right before Halloween.
But it gets worse.
When a locked room murder case points straight at a connection to dark forces, the sleuthing duo fears for the living – and the not-quite so departed.
Can they root out the evil in their midst before it ends Adriana’s happy afterlife – forever?
It’s so lovely to be back. It’s been a crazy few months for me and my great-great-aunt! She is definitely making the most of her afterlife. Luckily, we’re getting a lot better at figuring out how to communicate without anyone whisking out a straitjacket for me.
Adriana says hi, by the way. She’s busy with coaxing a stuck kitten out of a drainpipe. Never a dull moment!
Aww. What have you been up to since we last spoke, shortly after Genie and the Ghost came out?
Let’s just say, you wouldn’t recognize Cobblewood Cove, or me! Who’d have thought that a ghost would completely change my life for the better? Thanks to my great-great-aunt I’m now officially an award-winning gelato maker (Adriana’s the mastermind but I can’t very well say that my recipes were created by a ghost …) Gem and Gelato, that’s us. There are new stores in town too, and the old speakeasy dating back to Adriana’s lifetime is going to be reopened, with our help. Unless the naysayers manage to spoil everyone’s fun. Although I’m worried about a few nasty things happening lately – and than there’s Halloween. I’m not telling Adriana, but I’m worried that she might be vulnerable to occult attacks after all.
Oh no. Ghost and the Haunted House is the fourth book in your series, Genie and Adriana Darling. Is the book a standalone read, and what can readers expect from it?
All the books in the series can be read as stand-alones. As always, this is a madcap murder mystery, with lighthearted humor. Adriana insists on keeping it more in line with her much loved classic Hollywood comedies. The only things she takes seriously are helping her friends and taking care of all the animals that cross her path. After all, she’s the only pet whisperer in town.
Your great-great-aunt Adriana is a ghost. How exactly does she help you solve murders?
I couldn’t do any sleuthing without her. Although we haven’t yet settled the question who the Sherlock is in our investigations and who is playing Watson, we make a pretty good team. If she’s close enough to me, she can walk through walls, pick pockets if the items are small, and she finds out so many things from the local cats and dogs! Don’t tell her I said that, but I think she’s the bee’s knees, the cat’s whiskers, and the best thing that ever happened to me.
Can you please tell us about some of the people we’ll meet in this story?
You’ll catch up with most of my old friends. Jolene, Girl Friday extraordinaire, is busy reopening the speakeasy with a little (or a lot of help) from me, our librarian, and the first ladies of Cobblewood Cove. The Schuyler sisters are in their seventies but that doesn’t slow them down!
The biggest fly in the ointment is the newly formed Cobblewood Cove Citizens’ Charter against Debauchery. Their leader is harassing everyone into preventing Jolene’s new business! They’re also not too happy with a new crystal store that sells esoteric stuff. You can imagine the situation when a prankster plays tricks that smell of a connection to dark forces …
What can you tell me about your creator, Carmen Radtke?
Is she listening? I don’t want to complain, after she dropped all her other projects when Adriana first appeared, to give us the time of our life – although we didn’t ask for murder and mayhem! Still, she told me she’ll finish another book next before she returns to us. Something about Jack and Frances being stuck in London back in 1932 because of Adriana and myself. No ghosts there, by the way!
All I’m saying is, she’d better hurry. Adriana discovers new hobbies at a clipping pace if she’s not busy enough. This time it was Feng Shui, and who knows what awaits me next!
To cut Carmen some slack, she’s also busy taking care of a chronically ill, very old rescue cat she took in at New Year’s. I wish she had Adriana to help her with that.
What’s next for you and this series?
I’m still trying to solve the mystery of Adriana’s death and I’m sure her missing necklace is connected to the question. Although there’s no way to tell if finding it will make her cross over for good, I have to try. That’s why I’m taking her to Scotland next, where a possible clue awaits us. We’re invited over Christmas to a real castle! I just hope that Adriana will be the only ghost gracing the ancient building with her presence.
Genie, thank you so much for your time.
Purchase Ghost and the Haunted House from:
(Affiliated Links Used)
The Adriana and Genie Darling Mystery Series:
Ghost Conquers the Castle (Book 5) releases November 29, 2024
She has worked as a newspaper reporter on two continents and always dreamt of becoming a novelist and screenwriter.
When she found herself crouched under her dining table, typing away on a novel between two earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, she realised she was hooked for life.
The shaken but stirring novel made it to the longlist of the Mslexia competition, and her next book and first mystery, The Case Of The Missing Bride, was a finalist in the Malice Domestic competition in a year without a winner. Since then she has penned several more cozy mysteries, including the Jack and Frances series set in the 1930s and the Genie and Adriana Darling series.
Carmen now lives in Italy with her human and her four-legged family.
Places to find Carmen Radtke:
You can follow the Ghost and the Haunted House Blog Tour here.
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