Cottage on Gooseberry Bay: Halloween Moon

Good Start
Cottage on Gooseberry Bay: Halloween MoonCottage on Gooseberry Bay, Book #1Kathi Daley5 StarsSynopsis:A new series by USA Today Bestselling author Kathi Daley.Ainsley Holloway had come to Gooseberry Bay to find answers about her past. She’d come to find an explanation for the dreams that haunted her after the death of the cop who’d both rescued and raised her. And she’d come to identify the family she couldn’t remember but knew in her heart she’d once belonged to.Ainsley hoped that by finding these answers, she’d also find healing. She hoped that once she’d resurrected the memories buried deep in her mind, she’d find peace.The Cottage at Gooseberry Bay is a series about, not only finding answers, but finding hope.It’s a series about family and friendship.It’s a series about shared holidays, festivals, and celebrations.It’s a series about shared heartbreak and hardship.And it’s a series about the bond that can be forged amongst strangers when tragedy binds two or more individuals with a common goal.In book 1 in the series, Ainsley arrives in Gooseberry Bay only to find there will be no easy answers as she’d so naively hoped. Unwilling to leave before she gets what she came for, she rents a cottage on the sea where she and her dogs, Kai and Kallie, can settle in and wait.Her first night in town she meets a young woman who is later found dead. The local sheriff has labeled the death of this young woman a suicide based on a text message she’d sent before she died. But Ainsley, who’d spoken to the victim only hours before the text was sent, isn’t quite as sure of the easy answer the sheriff would like everyone to believe.An investigative journalist by trade and cops daughter by upbringing, Ainsley never had been the sort to walk away from unanswered questions, so with the help of new friends she meets along the way, she initiates a parallel investigation which seems to indicate the sheriff’s real motivation in trying to sell the suicide angle to the community is to protect the interests of a very rich and very powerful man. (Amazon)Review:This is a new series written by this author and it was a good one. It has all of the things that I look for in a cozy book-great characters, an inviting setting and a good mystery.The characters are well developed and well rounded. Although Ainsley is new to Gooseberry Bay, she is making friends and beginning to feel like part of the community. She soon makes friends with Parker, Josie and Jemma. The four of them are very willing to do what it takes to find the killer of a girl they know.The author is very talented in her descriptive writing and it pulled me into the story right from the beginning. Through much of the book I felt like I was right there, watching all of the action in Gooseberry Bay taking place.As is usual with this author, there are a couple of mysteries taking place in this book. One is who killed the young woman, and the other is what really happened when Ainsley was adopted. That one will take some more work from Ainsley to get to the truth.I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well crafted cozy mystery. I cannot wait to read the next book in this series.

Absolutely Awesome
Halloween Moon is the first book in Kathi Daley’s Cottage on Gooseberry Bay series. The author is very talented in descriptive writing, and I felt like I was right in the midst of the activities taking place and sharing the characters’ tragedies and joys. The affable characters are well developed, and the well-plotted storyline flows smoothly. This is a fun and clean read, with a strong emphasis on family, friends, caring, and compassion. The complex mysteries encompass the main character’s past and a current murder, and the red herrings and the twists and turns will keep readers engaged and guessing.Welcome to Gooseberry Bay, Washington, a charming community where an old photograph and dreams have brought Ainsley Holloway in her search for the truth about her past. After the death of her adoptive father, Ainsley and her two Bernese Mountain Dogs, Kai and Kallie, travel across the country from Georgia to Washington. The photograph, which she found along with her father’s diary, features a house with a woman and two young children. Ainsley, who is immediately drawn to the house and people in the photograph, believes the house is located in Gooseberry Bay, and that she is somehow connected to the people, hopes to learn their identities. When she first arrives in town, she meets Hope Masterson, the owner of the Rosewood Inn, who doesn’t have any vacancies but agrees to rent her one of five cottages she recently inherited, on a monthly basis. While picking up takeout at the local bar and grill, Ainsley, a friendly and outgoing young woman whose work history includes working as a journalist and as a private investigator, meets the occupants of the other cottages, who welcome her with open arms and friendships quickly develop. She’s even invited to join them for brunch the following day. When the final guest arrives at the brunch, Ainsley learns that Cammy Collins, the sweet, enthusiastic clerk she met at the general store the previous evening, is dead. The sheriff’s office is treating the death as a suicide, but her new friends disagree, and even though she only briefly talked to Cammy, Ainsley doesn’t think that cause of death is plausible. Ainsley joins forces with her new friends, Tegan, Jemma, Josie, Booker, Cooper, and Parker, to try to uncover the truth about Cammy’s death.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next one. I found the last thirty pages to be somewhat rushed and it ended in a hurry. I was hoping for more on Ainsley’s quest for her past but I guess that will come in the next book. An enjoyable read!

Ainsley has just moved to the west coast near Seattle. She’s on a quest to find out who her original family are. A house with a woman and two children in front of it has intrigued Ainsley since she’d found it, after her father had died. Who was this family? Were they related to her? Why did her father have the picture? A great beginning to this West Coast series.

I read Halloween Moon in Large Print and I loved it so much; I ordered the next story in the series!The doggies made the story extra special.