Maddie Kosloski got fired from her high profile overseas corporate job for refusing to pay an official a bribe and has to face her siblings overachieving success and pressuring mother. Adele Nakamoto is her close friend and daughter of a vineyard owner/mayor with money to burn. Harper Caldarelli is another close friend and a financial advisor. Detective Laurel Hammer is Maddie's nemesis from high school who picks right up were she left off making her life miserable. Blond hunk Mason Hjelm is a potential romantic interest who runs a motorcycle shop next door to the museum. Tall, dark, and handsome Detective Slate (Laurel's partner) is another potential romantic interest. The cat,GD for Ghost Detecting, is an interesting adjunct staff for the museum.

The museum, voted tackiest museum in town, is a run down attraction with a creepy doll room and resident ghosts. The town is quirky with its annual Christmas cow (made of straw) tradition that somehow gets set on fire every year. Between the town and the museum, it combines for a quirky, fun feel that adds a lot to the character and mood of the book.

The plot gets twisty and it's hard to tell who the killer is among the many potential bad guys. Although Maddie doesn't go out and hunt down clues, many of the clues find their way to her as she works at the museum and asks a few questions. There are many red herrings complicating the issue as well. The pacing is light and easy with well timed events which kept me engaged. The climax is nicely done with thrills and danger. The wrap-up is delightful with a mock re-trial of one of the museum's ghosts who had been hung for her husband's murder. I loved that touch.

If you are looking for a light entertaining read, you might enjoy this book. The paranormal isn't dark or scary, rather a few creepy moments and more atmospheric. The premise for this series is great and the author took the idea and truly made it into an enjoyable and fun story. I am already eyeing the second in the series.

Rating: Excellent - Loved it, it had a good grip on me! Buy it now and put this author on your watch list

"When Maddie Kosloski's career flatlines, she retreats to her wine-country hometown for solace and cheap rent. Railroaded into managing the local paranormal museum, she's certain the rumors of its haunting are greatly exaggerated. But a new ghost may be on the loose. A fresh corpse in the museum embroils Maddie in murders past and present.

With her high school bully as one of the officers in charge, Maddie doubts justice will be served. When one of her best friends is arrested, she's certain it won't be.

Maddie grapples with ghost hunters, obsessed taxidermists, and the sexy motorcyclist next door as outside forces threaten. And as she juggles spectral shenanigans with the hunt for a killer, she discovers there truly is no place like home."

Paranormal cozy heading your way!

3.5

I’ve been on a cozy murder mystery kick and since I love anything paranormal this seemed like a good choice. I wasn’t crazy about the characters initially but they did grow on me. I enjoyed how the book technically centered on two mysteries - one current and one involving an object housed in the paranormal museum. The mysteries themselves were just OK and I preferred the historical mystery over the modern one. With both mysteries, though, the end “reveals” seemed a little rushed and the motives seemed kind of weak. Overall, “The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum” was a quick read and I might continue to reading the series to see where what further mysteries await Maddie and GD Cat.

This is definitely a cozy mystery. Three friends that have grown up together are still there for each other even when a murder takes place in one of their business. Is Maddie's best friend a killer or is there something weird going on at the Paranormal Museum? Maddie isn't sure what she really wants to do with her life and has the opportunity to take over the Paranormal Museum and fix it up.

I fell in love with all the characters, wondering who was involved with whom and if they could possibly a murderer. Right from the beginning I knew Maddie would love the Paranormal Museum but to try and solve the murder on her own without the police help? This is a fun cozy murder mystery with a back drop in wine country along with a fun paranormal feel. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn't a scary book or really much into spirit world. There is a few things that happen that could make one think there is a ghost in the museum.

I give this book a 3.5 out of 5 stars. I enjoyed this book, it was a quick, easy, fun read that would be great for anyone that wants something they can read on vacation or when you need something you can put down whenever, just picking up where you left off without worrying about forgetting what is happening.

Madelyn (aka. Maddie, aka. Mad) lost her job abroad forcing her to come back home to San Benedetto. But maybe that isn't the worst thing in the world? But through a trick of one of her best friends, she accidentally buys the local paranormal museum. And to make matters worse she finds a body in it, pulling her into a criminal investigation. Coupled with the 100-year-old mystery she's trying to solve, the police officer who is still bullying her after high school, and the sexy motorbike store owner that lives above her museum, Mad has got her hands more than full.

This novel has a host of great and fun characters, each of them are equally quirky and strange, making it really interesting to see where each of the relationships within this little community (whether romantic or not) will lead. Also, the writing (especially the dialogue) is great. I love the vibe it gives and how Mad seems so uncertain but at the same time okay with that uncertainty.

I'm definitely going to look at some of this author's other novels.

When I read this description, I knew it was a book right up my alley. I love cozy mysteries, love paranormal, so a combination was perfect! The characters were well written, as was the story. It was my first time reading this author, but definitely not my last.

Funny, catchy cozy mystery about a small town's paranormal museum and all the hot guys around. Oh yes, and murders - past and present. And a ghost detecting cat.

Maddie Kosloski was a successful, international firm employee, until she was fired for not wanting to take a bribe. So she reurned to her hometown with hope to recuperate here and bounce back. But there are no job offers - except the one to manage a local paranormal museum, and coming from her friend Adele at that. Maddie is not much prone to such a career twist, but she is willing to help. Until she and Adele found a murdered woman - exactly the one with whom had Adele's then fiance had cheated on Adele with. Adele was put behind the bars a as suspect, and Maddie and their other friend Harper are trying to help - until the second murder.
And paranormal museum is not just a tacky institution, too - there are strange happenstances around the photo of Cora McBride, a said murderer. Could Cora be innocent?

So Maddie finds herself intertwined in mysteries, a small town life and strangely having more fun what she has thought was possible here. Might it be that she is actually in the right place for her?

Breezy, light, fun mystery (as far as cozies go). And it is strangely addictive! I would actually love to read the sequel. Strange. Might it be that I am at the right place, too ?

My only complaint is that everybody is behaving as a good decade younger as they are supposed to be. But who am I to throw stones? :)

I found this to be a fun but light paranormal cozy mystery that I really enjoyed. I loved the main character and loved the small but unique town. I loved mystery that needed to be solved and can't say that I saw the person behind it all being who it was. I loved how they threw in some town mystery too and the whole thing about Cora was interesting. I'm interested to read the next book.

This is the first book in the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum series. I am not a big lover of the supernatural, witches kind of book so was pleasantly surprised that this book was a good Cozy Mystery with just a hint of the supernatural/paranormal thrown in. Maddie has returned home to San Benedetto after being fired from her globe-trotting job for refusing to offer a bribe to government officials to get a job done for her company. She comes from an over-achieving family so is at odds when the book begins. Not being able to find a new job has her at loose ends, so when her friend Adele asks her to take over the Paranormal Museum attached to her tea shop she decides to help her friend out. The museum is more creepy than paranormal with a "Creepy Doll" room and some other artifacts that claim to be "haunted". When they find a dead body inside, they scramble to solve the case as both of them are suspects. Adele eventually gets arrested, so Maddie buckles down to figure out what happened.

I really liked the characters. Maddie, Adele and Harper have been friends for years and we get to see a little bit of their close and loyal relationship. We find out tidbits about them that I hope will be expanded on in the next book. Maddie's neighbour and possible love interest, Mason, is a builder of motorcycles and motorcycle lover. He just happens to be in the right place at the right time to help Maddie solve her problems. He is gorgeous, friendly and a little bit funny and Maddie looks like she is heading into a romance. The quirky Herb, who sells her artifacts for the museum is a bit of comic relief and even the cat, GD cat (ghost detecting cat) has a personality all his own. They all mesh together very well.

The book has a lot going for it. There were times that I laughed at the more outrageous characters and their actions and there were quite a few of those. The mystery was interesting and I did not figure out the culprit at all. It made sense at the end, but I has another suspect in mind throughout most of the book. There was a touch of paranormal which added a bit of fun too. There was a second mystery within the book with Maddie trying to solve a murder from the early 1900s. All these things were balanced quite well in the book and I am definitely looking forward to the second one in the series. The story kept me reading until I could find out what happened, a big draw for me with a new series. I recommend this to readers of Cozy Mysteries who enjoy trying to figure out "who dunnit" while being entertained.