Review: All Spooked Up by E.J. Copperman

All Spooked Up (Haunted Paint Store Mysteries #1)
by E.J. Copperman

My Rating: 2 stars

Genre: Cozy Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f

Blurb:
Paint store owner Laura Meehan makes the discovery of a lifetime in her shop when she stumbles upon a body and . . . her dead father’s ghost! This brand-new Haunted Paint Store Mystery has Copperman’s signature wit, humor, and zaniness aplenty!

Dealing with her father’s recent death, Laura Meehan decides to move back to her New Jersey hometown and take over the paint and wallpaper store he opened after quitting his straining job in the police. Knowing that she is uprooting her own and her supportive husband Roy’s lives, she’s determined to continue her father’s legacy and keep the business alive.

But that doesn’t seem to be the only thing alive when Laura discovers that her store is haunted by none other than her deceased father! Either that or Laura has finally lost her mind and developed Ghost Traumatic Stress Syndrome . . .

When she discovers the body of the town’s deadbeat painter Ernie on top of all that, Laura is determined to find the culprit who’s rudely used her store as their murder scene, with the help of her ex-police detective father’s ghost—real or not, Laura might as well make use of his expertise!

It turns out Ernie owed a lot of money to a lot of people. Could one of them have reached breaking point and killed the freeloader?

A lighthearted, fun, and quirky cozy mystery with an intriguing paranormal twist. Perfect for fans of Copperman’s Haunted Guesthouse Mysteries and Cleo Coyle’s Haunted Bookshop Mysteries, as well as funny and cozy mysteries by Janet Evanovich, Elle Cosimano, and Amanda Flower.

My Review

I received a free copy from the publisher through Netgalley and voluntarily reviewed it.

I was so excited when I heard about this book in an upcoming new cozy mystery releases Youtube video I watched, the premise sounded so good and I knew I had to read this one and luckily saw it still up on Netgalley for request. Sadly this book didn’t work for me. All Spooked Up follows the point of view of Laura who inherited her father’s paint and wallpaper store, she and her husband decide to upend their lives and move back to her hometown so she can take over her store. Then a dead body is found in the store and Laura starts seeing the ghost of her dead father who used to be a police officer.

I just love the premise of this one. Not only does it have such a unique setting for a cozy mystery with the paint and wallpaper store, but there is a bit of paranormal with her seeing the ghost of dead father and his insider knowledge from being a police officer and I also like reading about already established couples. Sadly this one just fell flat for me. I have the hardest time DNF’ing cozy mysteries as I know sometimes the first book takes a while to get going and by then I am usually far enough in that I want to know who did it. I wished I had DNF’d this one as it obviously wasn’t a book for me.

Let’s start with the writing style, from the first page I knew I would struggle with that, it’s written as if the main character is telling the reader her story and adding these little weird interjections or comments about what happened. I think it’s supposed to have this lighthearted and funny vibe, but the writing style didn’t work for me and it was annoying to me.

The mystery started off decent with the body being found in the main character store and that’s how she gets involved. I did think the method of murder seemed very impractical and quite gruesome. After the set up it just felt like it didn’t really go anywhere for a long time. It just didn’t really keep my attention and I had hoped for more smart investigating. I did like how Laura used her husband’s expertise to do some sleuthing on the computer and be somewhere when she couldn’t, which I thought was a nice addition. I did manage to guess part of the reveal, but more due to writing style reasons than the clues. And then when the whole conclusion to the mystery is there it’s this weird scene with a confrontation, that just didn’t make sense to me on so many levels or maybe I missed something and the murderer had this typical villain vibe and the whole confrontation scene just felt ridiculous. By then I just didn’t care about the story anymore and the reveal didn’t change that.

I also would’ve liked some more store scenes, with a lot of the book actually taking place in the store I felt like I didn’t really read a lot about Laura working there. There is a bit about the group of painters in the morning and a returning customer that stops by multiple times. I also thought this book didn’t really feel as cozy as I had hoped.

The main character also keeps trying to argue and having these weird conversations with the detective, who strangely enough is called Hannibal Watson, which got me out of the story every time his name was mentioned. She kept edging him on even tough he is just doing his job, I also would be exasperated with her if I was him. I did actually like Laura’s romance with Roy and seeing them together.

Then there is the whole thing with her fathers ghost, I thought this would be a big part of how Laura solves the mystery with her father having knowledge she doesn’t have, but mostly he just looks at her disapprovingly or approvingly while she talks with other people. He can’t leave the store, which seemed like a good limitation as else it would be too easy for him to figure things out but I felt there was so much more that could’ve been done with the ghost angle. Like with him noticing things that Laura could not or by sharing his police information.

I also got annoyed to no end with the fact Laura keeps believing for the entire book that she’s hallucinating and not actually seeing her father’s ghost. I recently read another book with ghosts and there’s a very easy way to proof the ghost is real namely by having them reveal or tell the main character something they don’t know. And the whole book Laura doesn’t even try to figure out if the ghost is real. Instead she goes to see a psychologist so they can have these conversation that I think were supposed to be funny. I obviously did not get the humor in this book.

To summarize: I loved the premise for this book with an unique setting at a paint and wallpaper store, the main character already being in an established romance and her seeing the ghost of her dead father who used to be a police officer. Sadly this book did not work for me. The writing style bothered me, was annoying and didn’t work for me with the main character sort of telling the reader what happened with these weird comments. I didn’t find the humor in the writing style or the situations in the book funny. The mystery didn’t keep me invested and was kinda gruesome with the murder method and some darker stuff related to the motive than I expected from a cozy. It also didn’t really feel very cozy most of the time. The ghost plot line which I thought would be an integral part of the story was more comedic relief, which wasn’t very funny and it bothered me that the whole book Laura keeps thinking she’s hallucinating. There’s an easy way to proof the ghost is real namely by having him share something the main character doesn’t know, and this actually happens accidentally later on, but the character doesn’t even realize it. I thought the father’s expertise and knowledge would be integral to the mystery, but he doesn’t really contribute much. I am just very sad this book didn’t work for me as I really liked the premise.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.