{"id":5309,"date":"2023-10-13T06:59:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T13:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5309"},"modified":"2023-10-13T06:59:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T13:59:24","slug":"paula-munier-home-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/paula-munier-home-at-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Paula Munier: Home at Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercy & Elvis #5<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is a great Halloween read.\u00a0 You\u2019d think mystery fiction would be more littered with great Halloween reads, but there really aren\u2019t that many.\u00a0 Munier also has a theme, as she always does, and the theme of this novel is \u201chome,\u201d the meaning of it and the finding of it. Her series centers on Mercy Carr, a veteran of the Afghan war, as is her dog, Elvis. The story opens with a young Mercy Carr encountering a ghost like figure at an old, abandoned house in town.\u00a0 The woman who had owned it was a well known poet, and one of her more famous poems is a Halloween verse for children.<\/p>\n

The poem is the book\u2019s opening epigraph, and Munier is nothing if not the epigraph queen.\u00a0 Each one in this novel relates to the concept of home.\u00a0 This is an aspect of her books that I truly appreciate.\u00a0 Fast forward to the future, and the newly married Mercy and her husband, Troy (and of course their dogs, Elvis and Susie Bear) are looking for a home as the one they are in has suddenly become too crowded.\u00a0 Living with them are Helena, a young woman Mercy took in, her baby, and her partner, Brodie.\u00a0 Mercy\u2019s isolated cabin, built for her and her dog, is full to bursting.<\/p>\n

The house they decide on, naturally, is the old haunted house met in the first chapter.\u00a0 It seems to be an utter wreck, out in the middle of nowhere, but it feels right to Mercy and Troy and they makes arrangements to buy it, despite finding a dead body in the library during their house tour.\u00a0 The house is as full of secrets as you can imagine, and there are mysteries upon mysteries, including letters or manuscripts the poet may have left behind her.<\/p>\n

Mercy and Troy, along with trying to find out who killed the man in their library (not to mention trying to discover who he might be), are also trying to find these hidden gems.\u00a0 Every other poet and Druid in Vermont seems bent on the same task, and the isolated house is the scene of much more drama before the story is over.<\/p>\n

Munier is a fun storyteller.\u00a0 Her books always read much, much faster than I intended, and this one was no different.\u00a0 I raced to the finish.\u00a0 Along the way Mercy takes a bit of a beating, but she\u2019s stubborn and relentless and with Troy and Elvis at her side she doesn\u2019t give up. The books are kind of a yin and yang \u2013 cozy, but also action adventure.<\/p>\n

The cozy side of the books involves food \u2013 cinnamon rolls, lasagna, cheeseburgers.\u00a0 Everything you shouldn\u2019t eat but can truly enjoy on the page. There are lots of cozy elements: comfortable characters with a sturdy support system of family and friends, a charming small town, and even the dogs.\u00a0 If Elvis, a Malinois who worked through a war with his former master (and Mercy\u2019s dead boyfriend) isn\u2019t so cozy, Susie Bear, Troy\u2019s newfoundland, is.\u00a0 She\u2019s furry, friendly, and cheerful, providing comfort to everyone she meets.\u00a0 The worst thing Susie Bear might do is sit on you.<\/p>\n

Not so cozy is the action-adventure side of things, which includes more violence than a usual cozy, as well as a good amount of suspense. The story telling, action, and some of the complex and darker themes are less cozy, which in this novel involve a long family feud, poaching, and general deception.\u00a0 This book is what I think of as a \u201cdark cozy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever slot of the genre they fall into, though, the books are simply a blast.\u00a0 This one is full of Halloween atmosphere down to a corn maze, a possible ghost sighting, a creepy scarecrow, and flocks of grackles.\u00a0 An irresistible read, as always.\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mercy & Elvis #5 This is a great Halloween read.\u00a0 You\u2019d think mystery fiction would be more littered with great Halloween reads, but there really aren\u2019t that many.\u00a0 Munier also has a theme, as she always does, and the theme of this novel is \u201chome,\u201d the meaning of it and the finding of it. Her … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[251,1408,287,246,1406,539,100,252,1407,1276],"class_list":["post-5309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-dogs","tag-families","tag-halloween","tag-haunted-house","tag-home-at-night","tag-mercy-carr","tag-minotaur-books","tag-paula-munier","tag-poets","tag-robin-agnew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5311,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309\/revisions\/5311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}