Chasing Shadows

By: Lila Bruce

Narrated by: Caroline McLaughlin

Avery Smith, who returned to her hometown of Bethel Springs after time spent away in the big city, is finally beginning to absorb the culture shock and settle into her job at the local Sheriff’s Department. The pay’s not great, there’s a decided lack of decent coffee and available women in town, but those are sacrifices she’s willing to make to in order to be closer to her aging and increasingly eccentric grandmother. When the discovery of a dead body in the county coincides with the arrival of attractive but irritating TV personality Cameron Reinhart, Avery has to put aside her feelings of skepticism and disbelief when Cam claims to have seen Avery's murder victim - after she was murdered.

©2019 Lila Bruce (P)2020 Lila Bruce

Shadows

I loved it! Great quirky characters, good mystery with a surprise who done it. Strong MCs with great chemistry. I'll absolutely look for more books by Miss Bruce.

Hilarious lesbian murder/mystery ghost story!

“Chasing Shadows” is a very fun lesbian murder/mystery ghost story comedy with a terrific cast of characters and a very enjoyable new-for-me narrator.

MC Avery lives with her grandmother Mildred and Jane, the “Bonnie to Mildred Smith’s Clyde for as long as Avery could remember“. The story opens with Mildred and Jane being caught at the funeral home, searching their lifelong cooking nemesis’ dead body for a peach cobbler recipe they think she was planning to take with her to the grave!

MC Cameron (Cam) returns to the small town in Georgia to settle her recently deceased grandmother’s estate, and isn’t pleased to learn that Mildred and Jane dumped her grandmother’s body onto the floor during their 3am search!

Cam has crushed on Avery since high school, but Avery never noticed the younger (by one grade!) girl. But oh….she notices her now!

Anxious to return to LA and her job as a television show ghost hunter host, things go sideways when Cam and a local realtor see a real ghost while evaluating a local house as a film shooting location so she can get some work done while settling the estate.

As Cam starts seeing other ghosts, Avery is a skeptic…until confronted with evidence she can’t ignore!

There’s attraction between our likable MCs, and one brief but enjoyable explicit scene, but what makes the story so fun is the cast of characters and their activities and interactions. In addition to the hilarious Mildred and Jane, we have a bigoted detective, a talkative eager new detective, promoted in part because his uncle is Chief Deputy Sheriff, Cam’s high school friend Linda, whose murder creates one of the ghosts and leads to evidence of another murder in the late 1970s, that may very well have been committed by the same person.

Given a couple murders and a couple of other deaths, I’d be embarrassed to admit how much laughing I did throughout listening to this book if not for the fact that the author and narrator clearly intended for me to laugh! 4.7* rounded to 5*!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

My rating and my review was not in anyway affected by my having been provided a review copy.

A must listen too!

This audiobook has a little bit of everything needed for a well written paranormal mystery. The characters were spot on and at time witty, snarky and downright funny! The narrator did a great job with the telling of the story with a little twist at the end...I just about listened to it in one sitting. Bravo to both the author and narrator 5 ⭐️

I LOVED IT!

I loved it! This book caught my attention from the very beginning and held it throughout the entire book. This book is full of drama, suspense and humor. The narration was outstanding! It will keep you entertained! The author did an amazing job with the character builds and plot! This was my first book by this author but definitely not my last! I look forward to reading more of her books! I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Caroline Rules

Really enjoyed this book, the narration is very good. Caroline.... narrate more lesbian novels please!!!

Very Entertaining-

I really enjoyed this book. The writing is excellent—right out of the gates you become invested in these characters. There is nothing “tropey” about this murder mystery. It has some of the best “natural” humor that I found myself laughing while listening. The relationships of family, neighbors & frenemies struck me as authentic.

A love relationship doesn’t overtake the mystery. The police procedural was believable even with the “paranormal investigators” thrown into the mix.

I became so invested in these characters I’d love to read a sequel. I will be looking for more books by this author.
The Narrator’s approach to various characters was excellent.

This was an extremely enjoyable, witty and entertaining book

**I was given a free copy of this book in lieu of an honest review

Great listen

It was a great story - interview and ghosty just like I like it - it kept me interested the whole time - I a little confusing at first because the voices were all the same , but it was good

Not a fan of the narrator

Narrator does not give enough of a difference in sound or accents between the characters voices. Also, voice is a bit nasal.

Ghost stories are not my thing

But after a while it was OK, the story was well written but the narrator, didn’t do such a great job. Her voice was too flat throughout the narration though she did have great acting voice when narrating the different characters.

Entertaining mystery

I really enjoyed this story. Even though it was a mystery it also had me laughing out loud several times. Avery and Cam were cute together and Avery’s grandma Millie and her sidekick Jane were priceless. I narrator was okay. It took me a while to get use to the voice but in the end it actually worked. There were times when I could not tell who was talking since the voices were not different enough at times. Overall a fun story and very good mystery.