Next time I decide to read this it will probably be for Halloween bingo, because this hits a lot of squares, including Halloween itself and carnivals.

It's fall in small-town Ohio, and Mab is almost finished restoring the old rides and statues in a small amusement park that's being refurbished. Mab unwittingly sets free a demon, and then all Hell is breaking loose. There's a little murder, a lot of mayhem, sex, beer, demon-possessed teddy bears, and a nice array of weapons.

Crusie and Mayer work so well together: it's witty and clever and exciting and sweet, and flows smoothly through all of its moods without a false note.

In a perfect world, Crusie and Mayer would write more of this kind of thing, and they would all be optioned for Netflix. In a pretty good world, other writers would mine the same vein. Who doesn't want more banter and brawling with a side of hellmouth?

Library copy

That...wasn't really what I was expecting.

I think if the blurb hadn't sounded like a romance, I wouldn't have gotten it. If it had been by someone not known for writing romance, I wouldn't have picked it up. H/h do eventually get back together but for 3/4 of the book, she's in a house with 2 kids, a crotchety housekeeper, and 3 ghosts. Then everyone descends on her at once and she's got a reporter, a cameraman, a professor, a medium and her spirit guide, the boyfriend she just broke up with, her ex brother-in-law, her ex, her mother, her ex MIL, and a PI. Chaos ensues, the professor is killed by one of the ghosts, she's almost killed, etc. Not really funny at any point, in spite of the author's best attempts (really, the closest to amusing was when everyone started arriving during the seance.

I didn't get the purpose of repeated seances, or why it took so long to make a connection. Also, the H had someone investigating the house's history before it was relocated to the US, yet that bit never came to light. He had opportunity but was so busy convincing the h that she was hallucinating everything after being drugged that he never bothered to share what he knew, so what was the point?

I read this years ago, long before my vow to write something about every book I read; likely just after joining GoodReads back in the halcyon days when the site was actually fun, but I was still too nervous to write anything.  I loved it, as is evident by the 5 star rating I gave it back then (and I'm keeping for posterity's sake).  Sunday I was feeling slumpy and needed something easy, and since I've always wanted to go back and write something about all the early books, a re-read of this accomplished two goals.

3 sisters with powerful magic, hiding from the Aunt that killed their parents while stealing their powers.  A fabulously evil Aunt determined to get the sisters to surrender their powers to her, who attempts to bribe them all by sending them their soul mates; or in one case, a reasonable facsimile thereof.  A showdown in a small town whose residents are obviously deaf, dumb and blind in the extreme.  Heaps of humor, sass, girl power and HEA's.  An absolutely awesome, awesome cat name Pywackt.  

I didn't expect it to stand up very well over time.  I love a few of Crusie's non-paranormal titles to death, but she's not a consistent writer, her paranormal stuff tends to be over the top, and I remembered this being more romance than chick-lit (fine line, I know).  But it did stand up rather well.  It's not one of Crusie's best by a long shot - although it's really one 1/3 hers anyway, as she co-wrote it with 2 other authors: Eileen Dreyer and Anne Stuart, neither of whom I know anything about - but it's fun without being flaky or formulaic.  The humor stands up, and there are a few sex scenes which I'd forgotten about that are far steamier than Crusie's other works (making me think that perhaps those scenes represent some of Dreyer and Stuart's contributions).

All in all still a great read when you're in the mood for a literary rom-com.

"Daisy woke the next morning in the wrong bed with the right man."

"The place looked like Better Homes & Gardens, but it was really Charles Addams."