Book Review: Haunted Is Always in Fashion

On this Mysterious Monday (like our new button?), we bring you a quick review of a fun mystery set in the South and filled with fashion, mystery, ghosts… You know, the usual things.

Vintage clothing, murder, ghosts, and a psychic cat

Haunted Is Always in Fashion, by Rose Pressey, is the fourth book in the Haunted Vintage mystery series, and it’s the first book in the series we’ve read. The setting is Sugar Creek, Georgia, where we meet our heroine, Cookie Chanel. Cookie owns a vintage clothing boutique called It’s Vintage, Ya’ll, and as the book opens, she is on her way to a meeting with one Juliana McDaniel, an author who wants to interview Cookie for a book on vintage fashion. Well, Cookie and Juliana will meet, but not in the way they’d intended.

See, what happens is, Juliana is killed in an apparent traffic accident while on her way to the meeting. I know… You’re thinking that surely Juliana’s death will completely prevent her from meeting Cookie. Well, I might have neglected to mention that Cookie can see ghosts, and in fact she’s already got one ghost, an earlier murder victim named Charlotte, hanging around with her. Soon enough she also has Juliana’s ghost hanging around, and naturally enough, Charlotte gets pulled into helping find out what really happened to her.

Other characters include Cookie’s detective boyfriend, Dylan; her best friend, Heather, who owns an occult shop; and Wind Song, the beautiful white cat who has a certain facility with a Ouija board. Seriously, when the humans want the answer to a mysterious question, they ask Wind Song, and she spells out the answer on the board. Well, not every time, but they do it often enough that it’s become a habit, and the cat makes some valuable contributions to solving the mystery.

Our verdict

We really enjoyed this book, and we’re not even all that excited about fashion. The plot was pleasingly mysterious, and we liked Wind Song’s contributions. Oddly (and if you could see her current slovenly attire, you’d understand why I chose that word), old SoLT enjoyed the fashion tips at the start of each chapter. “Wearing polyester leisure suits will send you straight to hell,” for example. Indeed. Sadly (see previous parenthetical comment), old SoLT is unlikely to put any of these tips into practice.

If you are into the sort of mystery that includes ghosts and cats, and especially if you enjoy fashion at all, we think you’ll have fun with this series. We will be looking forward to the next Haunted Vintage mystery. Recommended!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!