A wonderful supernatural cozy with intriguing characters! It's been a long time since I read a book like this one so I was surprised and delighted with it! I am excited to explore more books in the series and get to know Eleanor Wilde as the series progresses! I hope everyone gets a chance to read this one. It's a good one!

This is one of the best cozies I have read! I had my doubts at first because initially the main character, Eleanor, came off as a bit unlikable for a cozy character. She is a psychic swindler with some harsh world views, but as the story progresses the author adds layers and complexities to Ellie. She quickly becomes quite relatable. She is devoted, intelligent and making the best out of the cards life has dealt her. Rarely are main characters painted with so many layers in a cozy mystery. The mystery unfolded seamlessly and the twists and turns kept coming. I looked forward to picking the book back up every time I was forced to set it down. Five stars.

Eleanor Wilde advertises herself a psychic medium, and comes highly recommended. However, there's one thing a little bit different about Eleanor, she is a complete skeptic when it comes to the supernatural. She employs tricks of the trade in order to convince her clients that she has in fact helped a restless spirit move on and vacate their house, and if she can smash an expensive bottle of wine from her collection in the process as part of her cleansing, even better. Her belief is put to the test when Nicholas Hartford finds her at Happy Acres, where her comatose sister resides, and asks for her help to cleanse his family castle in England. Nicholas knows that she's a fraud, but still wants to hire her so that his mother will give up with believing in Xavier, the supposed restless spirit. Reluctantly Ellie agrees to take the job and finds herself in good old England. This job isn't the same as her others, she finds that she doesn't need to employ her usual "haunting" tricks, because someone else is doing it for her. When she comes across a dead body in the kitchen, that disappears as soon as she runs for help, she finds herself embroiled in a murder mystery that makes her appear delusional. Who was the murdered man? Is Xavier real? And is she really hearing her sister's spirit voice talking to her for the first time in a decade? Only time will tell, and time is running out.

I found this to be a truly refreshing foray into the psychic medium and supernatural world, the fact the Eleanor is a complete skeptic lends a freshness to the genre that I feel can get a bit stale at times. I love that the author has included a lot of the cold reading in Eleanor's character that is prevalent in majority of the 'psychic' practitioners around. Eleanor was fantastic at making her clients believe in what she did and what she could do for them. Yes, she offered a kind of comfort, which can be a big part of it, but she also swindled them out of a lot of money for her "cleanses".

The story itself, I really enjoyed, I found myself completely immersed and taken along for a fantastic ride. The whole time I was wondering, is Xavier real? Or is this actually the cause of someone living in Hartford castle, I felt as lost and clueless and Eleanor. I was excited at the prospect that maybe Eleanor was wrong, and she really IS a psychic medium who can convene with the dead. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire mystery surrounding this story, and felt that it was all brought together and tied up at the end beautifully.

I really enjoyed the characters as well. Eleanor was an easygoing, relatable character, after all, she may be in a slightly dishonest line of work, but she's doing it for a good cause. Ellie does what she does purely to give her comatose sister Winnie, the best that she possibly can. Making sure that Winnie can stay at Happy Acres, which is more that suitable, is Ellie's prime care, nothing else matters as much as this. Her brother Liam isn't as enthusiastic in Ellie's line of work, but he can understand her driving need to look after their sister. I loved Rachel, a teenager who's never aloud to leave the house pretty much, she is overexcited when Eleanor comes calling, and gets swept up in believing that Ellie is the real deal. I enjoyed how blase Nick was, he knew Ellie was a fraud, but was incredibly interested in how she was going to pull of her normal charades.

The mystery was done incredibly well, I had no idea who done it, right up until the reveal, when all of a sudden, so much came to light and suddenly everything made sense. I found myself unsure of who to trust and who to run away from, which I found fantastic.

I'm really looking forward to see what comes next, and can't wait for the next installment.

I was looking forward to reading this book but unfortunately it just did not grab me.
I found the characters irritating and the premise did not live up to my expectation.

The title really intrigued me, so I had high hopes for this book.
Unfortunately, I had a hard time engaging with any of the characters and the story did not grab my attention.

I volunteered to read and review an ARC of this book provided by the publisher and NetGalley.

Not your typical paranormal mystery. The characters were strong and I thoroughly enjoyed Ellie and Nicholas and look forward to the next in this series. The mystery was interesting and the book kept my interest throughout. I have read many paranormal mysteries and just found this one to be a cut above most.

This was a good light cozy mystery. Both the characters and storyline was fun and well written. I highly recommend.

Ellie is a reluctant medium/ghost hunter. She doesn’t believe in any of the hocus pocus, but she needs the money to care for her sister, who is ill. Her latest gig takes her to England and the ancestral home of Nicholas Hartford III where a ghost by the name of Xavier is reportedly causing trouble. Nicholas doesn’t believe in ghosts, but his mother does, and it’s obvious something is going on in the old castle. A quaint English village, a haunting, a real murder and a creepy castle make for a superior cozy.