Review: Clawing at the Corral by Beth Dolgner

Clawing at the Corral (Nightmare, Arizona #6)
by Beth Dolgner

My Rating: 4 stars

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

Blurb:
Horses, Homicide, and Hope in Nightmare, Arizona

Olivia Kendrick has déjà vu. The star of Nightmare’s popular Wild West Stunt Show is found dead after a heated argument, and it looks like an animal attack. Olivia knows better, though. The scene is eerily similar to the first murder she ever investigated in Nightmare.

There’s a young new stunt rider eager to take over the starring role, but he’s not the only one with a motive for murder. As clues mount about money problems, old grudges, and unbridled ambition, the suspect list only gets longer.

To make things worse, someone from Olivia’s past unexpectedly shows up in Nightmare, and he’s one of the suspects. The newcomer throws Olivia’s boss, Damien Shackleford, into a psychic crisis. Can Olivia help him control his power before someone gets hurt?

Clawing at the Corral is book six in the Nightmare, Arizona paranormal cozy mystery series. This lighthearted series is about starting over, found family, and solving murders in a quirky old mining town with a secret supernatural community.

My Review

I received a free copy from Tantor and voluntarily reviewed it.

It’s always a joy to return to Nightmare and spend some more time in this town with the familiar characters. Olivia gets involved in another mystery, her ex is back in town and she and Damien are still trying to get more control over their powers. So plenty going on in this book. I had a lot of fun listening to this book and the narrator is a good fit for this series.

The mystery in this one gripped me a bit less. For some reason I just wasn’t as invested in the mystery this time. I did like how the mystery got resolved. I liked how Olivia figured it out and the reveal made sense. The mystery has some parallels with the first book as both murders seem like animals attacks, which was interesting. The mystery involves Olivia’s ex, just like a lot of other books involving exes I couldn’t fathom why Olivia ever was married to him, but I liked how facing her ex again gave Olivia more closure.

I really liked the progress Olivia and Damien make with their pwoers. They’re really working on their powers and growing more confident with them, this book has them making quite some progress which was great. I also liked the progress they made with finding Baxter. It’s fun how finding Baxter is this overarching plot line throughout the series.

As usual I love reading about these characters. There are so many likable and interesting characters and I enjoyed reading about Olivia and the characters. the found family theme is so well done and I love how Olivia really has found her home here in Nightmare.

To summarize: I love this series and it was fun to return to Nightmare for another mystery. The mystery in this book didn’t grip me as much, but I still enjoyed the book. I liked the reveal to the mystery and how everything fell on it’s place as well as how Olivia figured things out. I really liked seeing Olivia and Damien work on their powers in this book and they uncover an important clue related to finding Baxter, which is the overarching plot line that continues throughout the series. I really like reading about this town and these characters and had a fun time listening to this book.

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

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.