Old Bones and New Ghosts (The Marti Mickkleson Mysteries) by Kay Charles
Character Guest Post + Book & Author Info + Rafflecopter Giveaway!
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Old Bones and New Ghosts
Marti Mickkleson and her ghostly Grandma Bertie are back!
With only one month to go until Marti meets the conditions of her late father’s will and gains control of her trust fund, she’s determined to be on her best behavior. No admitting that she can see ghosts and certainly no talking to the dead.
But her mother’s roped her into a new family project, her new office has a mysterious haunt, Grandma Bertie’s digging up mysteries from the past, her friend Dmitri’s barely speaking to her, and her sister’s life is falling apart. It’s enough to make a girl miss her days of flipping sort-of-beef patties on a Burger Buster grill.
Then things get really bad.
With both a cold case and a new murder on her hands, her “best behavior” won’t cut it. Protecting her family may cost her more than a trust fund. It may cost Marti her life—or the life of someone she loves.
Join Marti and Grandma Bertie in the follow-up to Ghosts in Glass Houses!
Old Bones and New Ghosts (The Marti Mickkleson Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
One Ghost Another Ghost (January 25, 2024)
Print length : 252 pages
Digital ASIN : B0CPCF4S3Z
To Purchase Old Bones and New Ghosts, click on any of the following links: Amazon & Amazon Series Page
Character Guest Post from Old Bones and New Ghosts
by Kay Charles
CHARACTER: Marti Mickkleson
When most people say the ghosts of their past come back to haunt them, they mean it figuratively. Not me. My name is Marti Mickkleson, and I see ghosts. Ghosts from my past, your past, the guy down the street’s past, your Great-great Aunt Gertrude’s past, or maybe even your Great-great Aunt Gertrude herself. If they are among post-living, haven’t crossed over the great divide, and are anywhere near me, we likely know each other.
As you can imagine, this has caused more than a few problems in my life. The living, including my oh-so-respectable parents, might enjoy a good ghost story now and then, but they generally don’t believe the post-living are still with us. Since my first words were spoken to and about a ghost—and it took me years to learn to shut up about the haunts in my life—my family and pretty much everybody else thought there was, shall we say, “something wrong” with me. Some still do.
You know that movie where the kid says, “I see dead people?” My first reaction was Join the club. My second was Don’t let them medicate you—it only makes it worse. I may have my issues, but communicating with ghosts isn’t one of them. At least not in that sense.
Eventually, things got so tense that I left home and didn’t speak to my family for ten years. My father, the Honorable Thaddeus A. Mickkleson II, found me and convinced me to go home. By the way, he’d been gone (such a nice euphemism) for a month at that point. Did he bother to apologize once he had proof of my ability to see, hear, and talk to the dead? Ha. You obviously never met The Judge. Anyway, moving on.
My return to Bicklesburg was…eventful. There was a bit of a brouhaha involving my mother, my late father’s mistress, and a concrete garden gnome named Mr. Stumpy. That’s all been straightened out. Mom prefers not to talk about it. It’s the Mickkleson way.
Now that Grandma Bertie and I have been back for five months, things have calmed down. Wait. I haven’t told you about Grandma Bertie, have I?
Alberta Marcile Ferguson is—was—my maternal great-grandmother. She’s both my biggest cheerleader and my biggest pain in the posterior. She left the world of the living at the age of ninety-two in a freak canoeing accident. Her last words reputedly were “Who needs a stinkin’ life jacket?” She denies it. The accident was exactly twenty-four hours before I was born, and we’ve been stuck with each other for the past thirty-two years. Where I go, she goes. Which was loads of fun during my teenage years. Yes, there’s a little sarcasm in that sentence.
The truth is I don’t know what I would do without her. If you tell her I said that, I will deny it.
As for my living family, my mother, Margaret Alberta Dibble Mickkleson, gives Emily Gilmore a run for her money. And it turns out that’s a lot of money. More than I ever imagined. My baby sister, the ever-perfect RachelAnne—one word please and a capital A and don’t forget the e at the end—has become a lawyer and is the mother of the Best Niece and Nephew in the Entire World. (Fight me on that. I dare you.) Thaddeus, the third in the line of Thaddeuses (Thaddei?), goes by his superhero name, T3. His sister Margaret goes by Maggie. T3 says Maggie doesn’t have a superhero name yet because no one knows what her superpower is. I know. It’s the same as mine. She’s going to need a friend. A living friend. She’s one of the reasons I’m still in Bicklesburg.
Yes, I have a brother-in-law, but I’d rather not discuss him. We don’t exactly have a mutual admiration society.
As a side note, auto-correct wants to turn “my living family” into “my loving family.” Sorry, auto-carrot. We aren’t quite there yet, but we are working on it and getting closer every day.
In the past five months, I’ve gone from living in a shabby one-room apartment and flipping not-quite-beef patties on a Burger Buster grill to sharing the family fortress with my mother and being Interim Director of the Mickkleson Family Charitable Foundation. Still not sure how my mother talked me into that last one. RachelAnne and I are sort-of-kind-of becoming friends, thanks to a lot of bonding over Oreos. As for her husband Peter, yeah, we’re never going to be friends, not in this lifetime or after.
Despite my mother and sister’s efforts to turn me into a Respectable Mickkleson Woman, things are going really well here in Bicklesburg. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it lasts.
What are the chances?
Kay Charles — Author of Old Bones and New Ghosts
Kay Charles is the much nicer, mystery-writing alter ego of dark fiction writer Patricia Lillie (author of The Cuckoo Girls, a 2020 Bram Stoker Award® finalist.)
Like her evil twin, Kay grew up in a haunted house in a small town in Northeast Ohio, earned her MFA from Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction program, teaches in Southern New Hampshire University’s MFA in Creative Writing program, and is addicted to coffee, chocolate, and cake.
She also knits and sometimes purls. Both their lives would be much easier if one of them enjoyed housework.
To learn more about Kay, click on any of the following links: Website, Goodreads, Facebook.
Visit all the Stops on the Tour!
January 23 – Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense – AUTHOR GUEST POST
January 23 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT
January 24 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT WITH EXCERPT
January 25 – Sarah Can’t Stop Reading – REVIEW
January 25 – Reading Is My SuperPower – SPOTLIGHT
January 26 – The Mystery of Writing – CHARACTER GUEST POST
January 26 – CelticLady Reviews – SPOTLIGHT WITH EXCERPT
January 27 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
January 27 – MJB Reviewers- SPOTLIGHT
January 28 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
January 29 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee – SPOTLIGHT
January 30 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
January 30 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW *
February 1 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
February 1 – Cassidy’s Bookshelves – SPOTLIGHT
Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell
Thanks so much for hosting me—and Marti!
Thank you for visiting with me and my readers!