A Ghoulish Midlife cover art

A Ghoulish Midlife

Witching After Forty Series, Book 1

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A Ghoulish Midlife

By: Lia Davis, L.A. Boruff
Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
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About this listen

Widow and empty nester Ava Harper never dreamed of turning 40 without the love of her life. Nor did she know she would bury her favorite aunt, who raised her after the death of her mother, a few years later. Then again, she doesn't have the power of foresight. No, her powers are much darker. Powers she has kept behind lock and key.

With her only son off to college and her life savings depleted, Ava returns home to Shipton Harbor, Maine. She's only there to clean out, fix up, and sell the family home. But like everything in her life in the last five years, things change.

Arriving in Shipton Harbor is like stepping into another world. Her high school rival is married to her best friend and is set on making up for every devious thing she did when they were teens. The magic in the house reawakens, making it impossible to sell. And to top it all, the sheriff looks like he belongs on the cover of a romance novel.

When an old friend of the family turns up dead, Ava must delve deep into the powers she's repressed all her adult life to find the killer.

Now she must open up to her own wells of dark magic to find the murderer while working with the hottie sheriff she's sure has his own secrets.

©2020 Lia Davis, L. A. Boruff (P)2021 Tantor Cosy Mystery Supernatural Thriller & Suspense Paranormal Suspense
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The book is entertaining enough and well narrated. However, it has very little in the way of a mystery to solve, sufficient humour for the genre and is quite short. The only hanging thread is the identity of Alfred, which is rather obvious.
It was a pleasant four hours to accompany me whilst I worked.

Average

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I enjoyed listening to this one. I've tried a few cosy paras with 40+ heroines, and this is one of the better ones. It's short and funny, and the characters are likeable. Maybe they're just a bit too likeable and maybe the problems are just a bit too easy to fix... House playing up because it doesn't want to be sold? Easy. Don't sell. Sell the other house you have instead. Move back to the old home town permanently? Why not? No ties back home in Philly.
Ava has some real problems- most of her family is dead and she's hit a dry spell with her writing, but she soon collects a new "family". Her best friend is married to her high school nemesis, but it's OK. Olivia has reformed. The sheriff is a witchhunter but he doesn't practise. Need a new job? Duh, get one from the local bookseller. Start writing again and the publisher, despite years of no mss, is happy to snap 'em up.

Still, I had fun. I quickly grabbed the next stories because I like Ava and her mad companions, even if things do seem to resolve with suspicious ease.

Fun and Ghoul

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a fun listen. it has a lot of the tropes of this genre, while still including some things that make it more individual. I can't justify spending a credit on a 4h listen.

fun, but predicatble

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