Review: Poisoning at the Party by Beth Dolgner

Posted March 10, 2025 by Lola in Fantasy, Mystery, Review / 5 Comments

Poisoning at the Party (Nightmare, Arizona #5)
by Beth Dolgner
narrated by Petrea Burchard

My Rating: 5 stars

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

Blurb:
Candy, Chaos, and Conjuring in Nightmare, Arizona

There’s a new fairy in town, and no one in Nightmare, Arizona, is happy about it. Olivia Kendrick learns why when she and Annabelle team up to help out at the annual Nightmare Fall Festival.

When Annabelle is found dead inside the corn maze the night of the festival’s kickoff party, the police don’t think it’s murder. Olivia and her supernatural friends at Nightmare Sanctuary Haunted House know better, and it will be up to them to catch the killer.

Even as Olivia closes in on the truth of Annabelle’s murder, her boss Damien seems further away than ever. Can Olivia convince him to explore his own paranormal power so the two of them can find his missing father?

Poisoning at the Party is book five 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 Audio and voluntarily reviewed it.

This audiobook contains both the book Poisoning at the Party and the novella Headless at Halloween. So I decided to review both separately in this review.

Poisoning at the Party review:
I was so excited to be back in the city of Nightmare. This is one of my favorite paranormal cozy mystery series and I couldn’t wait to continue the series. I had a great time listening to this book. I love hearing about Olivia’s daily life and all the characters she interacts with. This series is just so good in every regard from the characters to the mysteries and the paranormal elements. I can’t recommend it enough to fans of the genre.

I like how each book in this series has a separate mystery, but there are also overarching plot lines like the missing Baxter, Olivia and Damien’s powers and relationship as well as plot lines related to the various side characters we learn more of throughout the series.

This book had an interesting mystery. A temporary worker at the sanctuary gets killed and Olivia gets on the case. There are multiple suspects and motives and it kept me guessing. I was quite happy with the resolution, it was a nice reveal and I liked how Olivia figured things out and even used her powers along the way. I thought it was clever how an early clue came back and be helpful at the end. I also like the big role the paranormal elements plays in the mystery and the story in general.

I love the found family theme this series has. Olivia has such an amazing group of friends around her. In this book we see more of so many of the characters. I liked how Mama and Lucy are part of the story again as well as the various characters who work at the sanctuary like Clara, Zack, Mori and more. I especially liked learning more about Damien’s powers and seeing his connection with Olivia deepen. I also liked how there is more about Malcolm in this book and it finally gets revealed what type of supernatural he is, which was so interesting to finally learn that and it was not what I had expected.

I really like the narrator for this series, she does such a great job with all the different voices and she really brings the characters to life with the way she narrates them.

To summarize: I really liked being back in the town of Nightmare. I just love this series and it’s one of my favorite paranormal cozy mystery series. I like reading more about Olivia and the awesome group of friends she has around her. The mystery was a good one and kept me guessing. I liked the resolution and the way Olivia figured things out. I also like the way the paranormal plays such a big role in the mystery and the story as a whole. I was excited to learn more about the characters like Damien’s powers as well as finding out which type of supernatural Malcolm is.

Headless at Halloween review:
I was excited to have this novella included in the audiobook, I hadn’t listened to a book before this which included a novella and thought it was fun it was included so I could listen to it as well. Headless at Halloween is one of most well done cozy mystery novellas I’ve read. I was afraid it would feel rushed due to the shorter length, but despite the mystery progressing faster than in the full length books it never felt rushed.

The novella has the same vibes as the full length books, just a bit shorter. There is again a mystery, but also plenty of fun scenes involving Olivia and the plenty of side character. Maybe make an appearance and I enjoyed seeing Nightmare prepare for and celebrate Halloween.

The mystery was a good one, it kept me guessing and then I manage to figure out who the murderer was shortly before Olivia did. It’s always fun when that happens, a certain clue toward the end made things fall on it’s place and it was the same reasoning Olivia used to figure it out. I appreciated how Olivia got involved in the mystery and used her powers to help her find clues. I also liked how she’s the one to figure it out and resolve it. I liked seeing everything fell on it’s place and find out the way and how.

To summarize: This was a fun novella set in the Nightmare, Arizona series. I liked this novella and it was so well written, it never felt rushed despite the mystery progressing a bit faster. I liked how there was a solid mystery that kept me guessing as well as plenty of fun scenes of Olivia with the side characters and spending time in town. I manage to figure out who the murderer was shortly before Olivia did and it was satisfying to be able to figure it out. I liked seeing Nightmare prepare for and celebrate Halloween. All in all a fun Halloween themed novella set in this series and I look forward to the next book.