Cowboys and Chaos

Magical Mystery Book Club #3

By: Elizabeth Pantley

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

2023 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards Finalist

This is no ordinary book club! When the group chooses a book, they are whisked away from reality to find themselves immersed in the story. The characters, the setting, and the murder all come to life. In order to exit the book, they’ll need to solve the mystery and reach The End.

This time, the club chooses a mystery that takes place in a quaint western town – in the old Wild West. That sounds like fun, until they arrive in the dusty old town in the Arizona desert, among cowboys and saloons. They discover that the outhouse isn’t the worse thing about this trip.

The good news is that Paige, Glo, Zell, Frank, and the other members of the club discover plenty of surprises, and they have a great time visiting a piece of history. They’ll get to live through many exciting moments as they unravel this cozy mystery story.

A wonderful surprise awaits the reader within the pages of the mystery.

Listening to the audiobook just made this wonderful, fantasy book shine more. I admit, when I first started listening I wasn’t sure about the narrator, the voice seemed to lack warmth. As the book went on, I adjusted to the rhythm and tone and found myself enjoying the book immensely.

This time around the gang enters the book, The Mystery of Mollie’s Disappearance, which is a western set in Bandana, AZ. New member, Dr. Papadopoulos (Atticus), joins the gang amid his research of extraterrestrial energy.

A wonderful surprise awaits the reader within the pages of the mystery. There are many humorous moments throughout the story as Zell and Frank live up to their characters. The character of Molly was lovable and a bit of a rascal. As you read the book, you become so caught up in the Wild West with it’s open spaces, dirt roads, outhouses, saloon, and church socials that it’s like a movie unfolding before your eyes.

My favorite part to this book was the book within a book. As the mystery was unfolding, the author started explaining how the book club and the books work. Lots of information about being an author, how writing a book, plus the edits go, and about the writing industry itself.

There was a surprising twist with the murder case and the ending was unexpected, clever and frustrating as now the reader has to wait for the next book. The author stepped up her game with this book. I love, love this series.

My review is voluntary and all comments and opinions expressed are
my own.

Paranormal Cowboy Cozy Mystery

"Cowboys and Chaos (Magical Mystery Books Club #3)" by Elizabeth Pantley is even better than the previous two books. The author is really hitting a stride with this series. Now, being a paranormal cozy mystery series you may ask, "how can a cowboy story be a paranormal story too!" Ghosts. Well, one ghost. In this one the book club is trying to solve the mystery of how their ghost friend died while in the old west.

This one gets a few new plot twists thrown in that make you think a little. There was one reveal I kinda saw coming. However, it was more of a "I knew it!" in excitement.

C&C Bk 3

So far Bk 3 is my favorite in the series - I got this book because I liked the premise of falling into a book physically. While I'm not a huge fan of cozy mysteries I can't complain, since the series clearly identifies "cozy" but the series left me wanting more out of the story, I felt this series had loads of promise for it's idea's of travelling within the book - The character "Moonbeam" was totally redundant and in my opinion and brought the book down instead of adding a new dimension to the story line. Moonbeam also spends too much time minding other peoples business and wanting to correct their language and behaviour -
The virtual voice narrator still needs work, but it's one of the better virtual voice AI that I've listened to. The problem with virtual voice is that it lacks lilt and sarcasm, and idioms like "Tomato - Toe-mot-o" are lost on virtual voice, so it's difficult to feel part of the story in my opinion.

Giddy up

Giddy up for a fun adventure. This authors imagination is a delight and she uses it well to create unusual and wonderful stories that seem to get better and better. This is book three in this unusual series and once again the author transports you to a different location, situation and murder. My mum was a big fan of Westerns, so I grew up watching them with her and listening to this book took me back. I could have used some popcorn. The mystery was good with plenty of twists, some you see coming and others that you don't but it is the characters that really make this series so much fun. This time the talking cat is joined by a ghost and the rest of the quirky book club characters, I still love Zell the feisty octogenarian and her little surprises. I am off to start the next book..
Zell gets to pick the next book the book club pick and this time she comes prepared, as the book contains a little surprise for the rest of the members. The magic library transport them to the wild West where they not only have to learn to ride horses, avoid gunslingers but solve the disappearance of a saloon girl and maybe catch a horse rustler. Can Pagie and the gang find out what happened to Molly, did she runaway or did one of her many suitors harm here? What about the horse thief? With two cases to solve they have no time to gather around the campfire.
This series is narrated by virtual voice and while it does mean it is read by a computer I found that it doesn't interfere in the enjoyment and I got use to the voice and while it doesn't change up the voices like a narrator would, it doesn't sound robotical either.

Book clubs and mysteries

I love this series! Paige and her Aunt Glo are back in another book club mystery. This time they are going back in time in a Wild West mystery. There is an interesting new member who joins them. And they run into a big surprise in the new setting. There are always fun moments and interesting characters in these mysteries. I listened to the audiobook and it was enjoyable and easy to listen to.