Good Tidings (a Mary O'Reilly paranormal mystery)

Author: Terri Reid
Genre: Supernatural/mystery
Type: Kindle e-book (only)
Series: 2nd book in the Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery series
Series Order: ** Read in order **
1. Loose Ends (2010)
2. Good Tidings (2010)
3. Never Forgotten (2011)

First Line: "Black Friday - the official opening of the Holiday Shopping Season and Patrice Marcum is stuck in the middle of her local superstore with a crying infant, a near hysterical desire to just abandon the diapers and milk she desperately needs, and the snowstorm of the century dumping a half-foot of snow on the parking lot outside."

Synopsis: Patrice Marcum is done her Christmas shopping for the day and just wants to get home with her crying infant. Unfortunately, there's a huge winter storm dumping snow everywhere. Not wanting to take her 3 month old son out into the storm she accepts help from a kind elderly woman and a store clerk who offer to watch the baby while Patrice gets the car. When she returns she realizes that her baby is gone.

Mary O'Reilly is a paranormal investigator who is in the middle of getting her office in the Christmas spirit when the ghost of 6 year old boy named Joey Marcum contacts her. He asks Mary for her help in locating his baby brother who was just kidnapped.

Mary turns to her friend Police Chief Bradley Alden for help with the case. Mary soon learns that she must go to her hometown of Chicago to follow a lead. While there she enlists the help of her family to find the baby before it's too late.

My Thoughts: This series has hooked me and become a favourite. It's one of those series that has it all -- budding romance (without being too syrupy), suspense, action and humour. I read the first book in the series ("Loose Ends") a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I enjoyed this book even more. The author has a great knack for juggling the romance with the suspense and humour which, for this fairly picky reader, is not an easy thing to do.

I will say that in both books I did figure out 'who dunnit' about half way through but that didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the book. It's seeing how Mary solves the crime and her relationships with other characters that makes this series stand out. That being said, I would love it if the author could keep the reader in suspense longer in future books. I do love a mystery with lots of twists and turns that makes me keep trying to figure out who the 'bad guy' is.

That's not to say that there isn't a great amount of tension and 'edge of your seat' action towards the end! Yowza! Reid creates a wonderfully intense final scene that kept me on the edge of my seat!! I sat there wide-eyed forcing myself not to skip ahead to find out if Mary would be OK.

Reid is also great at letting Mary and Bradley's relationship progress at a nice pace. Not one of those 'hop into bed/bodice ripper' type reads (I'm not a fan of those) nor is it so slow that the reader loses interest. She gives readers just enough of a tease and new information regarding Bradley's missing wife to make me want to run out (ok, order on my Kindle wirelessly) the third book in the series. Truth be told .... I've already bought the third book in this series but I'm actually holding off reading it for a bit because I know that it's the last book in the series available (so far) and I don't want to be finished with the series within 2 weeks! With Reid's knack of cliff hangers it'll drive me nuts not being able to dive into the next book!

In this book Reid introduces us to new secondary characters. I loves me some great secondary characters! Good authors use them to progress the story or bring a good dose of humour to lighten the mood in an otherwise serious book. In this book we get to meet Mary's large Irish family. I love seeing their banter, specifically how her brothers interact (aka interrogate) Bradley to make sure he has the best intentions for their sister.

Joey (the 6 year old ghost) was a great character that brought a wonderful innocence and sentimentality to the book. Since he's a 'special kind' of ghost I'm hoping that he is brought back in future books to help Mary. Finally, one of my favourite characters never even uttered a word in the book. He was a big, smelly, shaggy .... ghost dog. Yup, in his own way he stole the show for me and brought a good dose of humour to the book.

Overall, I loved this book. If you're looking for a great weekend read, this is it (but start with Loose Ends!!). The Mary O'Reilly books are not overly long and are fast-paced enough that you wish they were just a bit longer (and that Terri Reid wrote even faster than she already does!!). :)

My Rating: 4.5/5 stars


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