Thank you to Sandie Herron for the review for Have You Heard?
Series: Haunted Home Renovation Mystery #4I loved this new entry in Juliet Blackwell’s Haunted Home Renovation Series. Mel Turner, general contractor, is working on a home for a disabled man who uses a wheelchair. They plan to build a ramp, several specific projects, and generally tidy up. Some of Mel’s workers are at the house on a Saturday along with many neighborhood residents to help as best as they can.
Before the charity work can begin, Mel’s sister Cookie arrives without her husband or children. She wants to show that she is important as Mel, so accompanies Mel all day to learn what her job is like.
Cookie shows how little she knows by wanting to just pop into numerous boutiques, eat out, and then go to Mel’s evening class as well. In a comical scene, Mel tries to drop Cookie at a Bart station so she can get within a few blocks from home. Cookie objects so vociferously that she take Cookie part way home where she is picked up by family to get home.
The next day brings the charity work day. They soon discover that the house next door is known as the Murder House where a man shot his daughter and wife with his son and second daughter hiding in an upstairs bedroom. The father then shot himself, and the remaining children crawled out a window to escape and to gather help. Ghosts are known to exist there introduced by loud banging of the front door knocker in a repeating pattern.
Mel has begun working on learning more about ghosts via classes with a renowned professor on the subject. He helps Mel set up a séance on the 25th anniversary inside the Murder House. Mel has even become friendlier with the SFPD detective that seems to show up in each book.
I am truly impressed by how much Mel has grown, up to and including this book in the Haunted House Mystery series. This book could stand alone, but I believe it was so very much richer having read it in publication order, just as this series has become.
Sandie Herron
