A Catered Halloween by Isis Crawford
My Rating: ★★
When Bernie and Libby take on a catering job at a haunted house, they never expect it to produce scares that can’t be undone. It doesn’t help that the location is rumored to be cursed, putting Libby on high alert. However, they need the business, so the sisters continue with the haunted house. Bernie loves Halloween while Libby hates all things scary. What could go wrong, anyway? Finding the beheaded Amethyst Applegate was certainly not on the list of things that Bernie or Libby thought were ever a possibility.
I know that I’m starting with the fifth book in the season, but now that it’s September, it’s time for some books with a Halloween theme! I was excited to pick this up, and it started off pretty strong! Unfortunately, it took a bit of a dip after that, but I found the overall plot pretty promising. We follow, well, too many characters! Bernie and Libby are the two main perspectives we follow, but we also follow Sean. While Bernie and Libby are likable characters, Sean is the exact opposite. Not only that, but his POV chapters don’t really add much to the story. If anything, every time he has a chapter, I’m left wondering how most people don’t flee from him and his bad attitude.
That said, I really do like Bernie and liked Libby as well. Bernie is funny, caring, and relatable at times while being very concerned with her appearance. She doesn’t always think ahead of things and often leaves her sister to pick up the slack while she’s off doing her own thing, but she means well. Meanwhile, Libby is very self-conscious, sensible, and anxiety riddled. She’s often irritated with her sister, but they’re very close, and she’s often left to be the responsible one with their business. The sisters are opposites, but Libby can be a little overbearing at times with being overly whiny or irritable. However, given how many times Bernie left her to do all the food prep, I could understand it at times.
I think the story had a lot going for it. The mystery plot was really interesting and I really thought it was a character that none of the characters ever suspected, but it seemed like a possibility. It turned out to be someone else who makes a lot of sense, especially given the huge bit of backstory that we learn about the ghost much later in the book! I did think that there are too many characters coming in and out of the story at all times, which takes away from the story. I also think that the paranormal aspect of the book was touch and go for quite a while, especially with how everyone was treating two characters about being ghost hunters. Given its importance to the story, I wish it leaned more into what Libby and Bernie are capable of on a paranormal level. It’s also extremely dialogue heavy, which made the story very clunky.
Right now, I’m on the fence about whether or not I want to give this series another chance. The story has a lot going for it, however, it needs to be tightened up to be spectacular because the overall writing and plot was pretty good. However, it’s dialogue heavy, Sean’s chapters don’t add anything to the story other than letting us see how unlikable he is, and there are way too many people popping in and out of the story at all times. That said, I really liked some of the characters, the overall plot, and how interesting Bessie’s story is as well as the paranormal touches the story has.
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