Dog Days — Wendy Corsi Staub

Do you believe in spirits? A series of strange happenings force Valley View guesthouse manager - and sceptic - Bella Jordan to question her beliefs in the new instalment of New York Times bestseller Wendy Corsi Staub's heart-warming cozy mystery series set in Lily Dale, New York's Spiritualist home.

After attending a family wedding in Chicago, young widow Bella Jordan is returning to the guesthouse she runs in Lily Dale - the quirky upstate New York lakeside village famous for its spiritual mediums - when she catches a glimpse of the impossible at the airport: her late husband Sam.

A former science teacher, Bella is grounded in facts and logic. She doesn't believe in ghosts. But even when she's back home with the competing distractions of her quirky guests, small son Max, resident pet cats and a very unexpected litter of puppies, Bella can't find a good explanation for what she's seen.

The situation gets even stranger when her psychic friend Odelia tells her that she made contact with Sam's spirit and he shared a significant name: Kevin . . . Bacon!

Bella doesn't know what to think, but when she glimpses Sam again and things start to vanish around her, she knows she has to get to the bottom of the strange happenings - even if that means letting go for good . . .

Readers of the Crystal Cave series by Susan Wittig Albert, the Harper Connelly mysteries by Charlaine Harris and the Bailey Ruth ghost novels by Carolyn Hart will love this charming, characterful cozy mystery series, which invites readers to draw their own conclusions on whether ghosts are real.