The Strangers on Montagu Street

NARRATOR: Aimée Bruneau I just love this series, a great story, humor and also the darker element of the ghosts. And of course as usual Aimée does a perfect job of narrating. The main characters throughout the series are Melanie (a realtor for old Charleston houses who owns/inherited one of those old houses and is constantly having work done on it) and Jack (a writer interested in old mysteries surrounding Charleston). Melanie has psychic abilities, inherited from her Mother, and has been fighting them all her life, but is slowly coming to accept them more as time goes on and her relationship with her Mother gets better. Melanie and Jack have been circling one another the whole series so far, pretending they're not attracted to each other, but things finally change in this book, to a degree! Surprisingly Mark is the trigger after being his usual slimy self - I never liked him and now I know my instincts were correct! But Jack took things he found out badly and blamed Melanie, which was totally out of order as while she may have been late in telling him something it wasn't actually her fault what happened and Jack did annoy me with his reaction. A new addition to the cast of characters is Nola, who is Jack's snarky 13 year old daughter, one he had no idea he even had until just recently when her mother died and Jack has taken over custody. A big shock to Jack, but not so much for Nola who already knew about Jack. Because Nola and Jack are not really getting on very well to start with Melanie agrees to let her stay with her for a while and whilst they do have a bit of a rocky start they soon get closer - and of course Nola's mother, Bonnie, is hovering nearby as a ghost who Melanie can see, but she doesn't want to talk to Mel initially. The ghostly element this time relates to an old spooky dolls house that Jack's Mother (Nola's new grandmother) gives to her, and is related to another old Charleston house and an elderly lady who lives there. There is a dog that dies unfortunately, but it was in the past, one of the ghosts linked to the story, so something I could just about put up with! Amongst all this Melanie's best friend, Sophie, and her new fiance are planning their wedding which lightens the story as Sophie isn't exactly known for her dress sense! This series is just so good, great characters, humor and scarier bits with the ghosts, I really love it and hope it continues for a long time, one of those series that I know I'll enjoy the next installment of whatever it's about, an automatic buy for me.