Damsel in a Dress
A cozy mystery by Kirsten Weiss
Bridesmaid duties can be deadly…
Maddie Kosloski has more than wedding cake on her plate. She’s managing her paranormal museum, helping her best friend Adele with wedding plans, and trying to prove that Adele’s vintage wedding dress is most definitely not haunted.
But when a bridesmaid turns up murdered, Maddie has to solve the crime to save the wedding. As her bouquet of suspects grows, and everyone’s alibis have the ring of truth, Maddie begins to doubt this wedding will go off without a hitch.
If you love laugh-out-loud mysteries, witty heroines, and a touch of the paranormal, you’ll love Damsel in a Dress, book 5 in the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum series of novels. Read this twisty cozy mystery today!
Excerpt
The wedding gown ghosted into my museum on a slither of plastic and a shiver of air conditioning. Since it was a paranormal museum, I should have figured that was a sign, an omen, a warning.
But all I worried about that morning was stepping on the hem of my best friend’s newly altered dress. I carried it like it was an atom bomb, arms extended, treading carefully.
File that under the had-I-but-known category.
My assistant, Leo, looked up from behind the glass counter and slid one finger inside the collar of his Paranormal Museum tee. “Yo.” His black leather jacket was slung over the back of his tall chair. A shock of his ebony hair fell forward, obscuring his eyes.
The museum’s front door drifted shut behind me, and the bell jangled above it.
“Thanks for managing things.” I draped the dress over the counter. Unpeeling the staticky plastic from my jeans, I scanned the museum, alert for disasters.
Visitors wandered between the shelves displaying haunted objects and creepy dolls. Photos of long-dead murderers gazed impassively from their frames beneath the black-painted crown molding.
“How many decks did you sell?” I bounced in my low-heeled sandals. The museum was doing better, but we needed to increase our in-store sales.
“One.”
I deflated. Bummer. Still, I’d only been gone thirty minutes.
GD, the museum’s ghost detecting cat, rose from the haunted rocking chair in the corner of the main room. It swayed beneath the ebony cat’s weight.
“How’d you get stuck with dress duty anyway?” Leo asked.
“I’ll do anything for wedding cake.” Really, I will. Also, I was a bridesmaid, and one of my bridesmaidly duties was picking up the altered wedding gown. Cruelly and unfairly, I had not been selected for cake sampling duty.
Review
I enjoyed the heck out of this. A cozy mystery that revolves around a paranormal museum? You had me at hello. Throw in wedding drama and a protagonist who’s wondering about her professional choices (been there), and I was hooked.
The mystery kept me guessing all the way through. Is it possible to almost guess the killer? Because I swear, I was so close (kinda…sorta…). The characters were as interesting and multifaceted as the mystery, and I very much agree with the sentiment about being able to eat Mexican food every day (I wait all week for Monday nights and my burrito, but I digress).
I don’t want to say too much and spoil the fun, so I’m going to stop here and just say “go read this.” It’s fifth in a series, so if you are a reader who needs to start from the beginning, I will alter my message slightly to “go read this series.” Either way, I highly recommend this for a fun romp through mystery-land. Looking forward to more from Weiss.
About Kirsten Weiss
Kirsten Weiss has never met a dessert she didn’t like, and her guilty pleasures are watching Ghost Whisperer re-runs and drinking red wine. The latter gives her heartburn, but she drinks it anyway.
Now based in Colorado Springs, CO, she writes genre-blending cozy mystery, supernatural and steampunk suspense, mixing her experiences and imagination to create vivid worlds of fun and enchantment.
If you like funny cozy mysteries, check out her Pie Town Mysteries, Tea and Tarot, Paranormal Museum and Wits’ End books.
If you’re looking for some magic with your mystery, give the Witches of Doyle, Riga Hayworth and Rocky Bridges books a try.
And if you like steampunk, the Sensibility Grey series might be for you.
Kirsten sends out original short stories of mystery and magic to her mailing list. If you’d like to get them delivered straight to your inbox, make sure to sign up for her newsletter at kirstenweiss.com
Feel free to follow her on Pinterest @KirstenWeiss, or on Bookbub, get in touch on Facebook, post a picture of this book to Instagram and tag her @kirstenweissauthor, or send her an email. She’ll answer you personally…which may be a good or a bad thing, depending on your perspective.
Email: kweiss2001@kirstenweiss.com
Giveaway
Kirsten Weiss will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Thanks for hosting!
Thank you for taking the time to read and review Damsel in a Dress! I'm glad to hear the mystery kept you guessing!