Claire Hendricks can see ghosts, but she can't see herself having a fun vacation. Yet when her new friends/found family, Basher and Alex, insist, Claire and her dead BFF, Sophie, pack themselves off to a remote Irish island. This tempest-tossed isle is indeed full of noises: not only is the hotel where the gang is staying double booked with a posh private party, the island's crumbling old fort is being fought over by rival ghost pirates. In death, as in life, they're vying over a legendary stash of loot, supposedly hidden somewhere on the island or in the surrounding rough seas...

The second in the series, Displeasure Island picks up a few months after the events of Grave Expectations to find Claire, Bash, Sophie, and Alex still friends and about to head off on holiday together. They book a hotel stay on a remote Irish island and when they get there, they find it was a mistake - this was supposed to be a friends-only weekend for a group that has known each other since college. But when one of them turns up dead, Claire comes under suspicion and vows to find the real killer. Add in pirate ghosts and shenanigans and you've got yourself a mystery!

Not quite as strong as the first, Displeasure Island is still a fun read. The relationship between Sophie and Claire continues to develop more depth as Sophie finds a ghost to fancy and starts pushing at the limits of her ties to Claire. However, Claire herself starts to feel tiresome - she is feeling neglected by her friends and doesn't really have the emotional maturity to understand their actions without believing they are betraying her. The mystery is two-fold and intertwined in a way that leads to red herrings and misunderstanding, but keeps a reader engaged. The resolution makes sense, though savvy readers will likely be able to guess the twists before they are revealed. A solid entry into a new series that I hope will continue!

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor and NetGalley for the opportunity to read Displeasure Island early in exchange for a review.

I went into this book thinking “oh scooby doo?”
Kinda by not really.
Then I was lost when a 30 year old lady didn’t know how to use an umbrella… I continued to push through & began to enjoy the very unique & interesting characters.

Thank you Vintage Anchor Books & NetGalley for this ARC!

Ok, a woman in her 30’s who lives in London doesn’t know not to open an umbrella BEFORE going outside? I just can’t get behind Claire as a protagonist in this series. It’s not a charming messy, it’s a lacking-common-sense-and-social-skills messy and I find her genuinely irritating. I love the premise of these books - a woman who can see ghosts (including her ghost BFF) and her random cast of character friends solving mysteries is right up my alley, but there’s something about these first two I can’t stand. I feel like the dialogue is unbelievable and overly quirky and, again, our main girl is a depressing (and depressed) loser. Again, too, I felt there were too many characters. Why did we need SO many pirate ghosts. I thought the wellness retreat guests were interesting and that plot point was enough to suck me in to the mystery. I liked the atmosphere of the island. I know Sophie (ghost BFF) is perpetually 17, so her brattiness makes sense, but it was a little over the top for me and I didn’t love her “romance” with an old island pirate. There’s just something that hasn’t hit with these two books for me. They’re fine. I love Ghosts the series. I love the inclusions with LGBTQIA characters and I liked this closed-circle-mystery, but it just feels confusing and slow. I guess I’d probably still read the next, cause I’m a glutton for punishment when it comes to series reads.

Claire and her friends from Grave Expectations are back, and in light of the the resolution of their first adventure decide to take a vacation. There choice? A remote Irish island that plays host to a retreat center built upon the remains of a village that used to house prisons workers. Is it haunted? Of Course! There are pirates forever in battle against some Irish brothers for possession of the island's fort. Does someone die rather quickly, also yes.

Claire is joined (again and forever) by her 17 year old dead best friend the ghost Sophie. Their friends form book 1, young Alex and his Uncle the retired cop, Basher play host for the vacation. However many things go wrong quickly. Turns out a group of college friends are having a reunion and the hotel should not have taken other bookings. Oh and the place is a no cellphone retreat so everyone has to hand over their device for it to be locked up.

It's a fun romp, but follows familiar tropes. A second adventure must challenge in different ways, here the plot centers on romance. Claire falls for a sweet worded doctor and Sophie for the ghost of a pirate. There are misunderstandings, everyone goes off and does their own thing, but eventually there is a murder and Claire corners herself in to solving it. Oh and everyone is stranded on the island thanks to sabotage. Claire's still a barely functioning adult as she was in the first book, but at least she has more friends and has grown up slightly.

Recommended for readers of semi-cozy stories, series with incremental changes, or British murder mysteries.

First and foremost, thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC for an honest review.

I think that Displeasure Island was a relatively strong sequel! The (likeable) crew from Grave Expectations had such fun dynamics that I was hoping to see more of them, and while this sequel does keep them separated a fair amount of the time, it works well enough to provide a bit more to each character than we originally got. I think the separation was a bit disappointing, but all I can hope with that is that we get set up for a more group mystery sequel! Beyond this, I thought that Claire's insecurities and anxieties felt relatively realistic, and the changes in her relationship with Sophie made enough sense to where it overwrote some of the tropes that showed up in that dynamic. I did also appreciate the addition of a fun new cast of ghosts to get to know (especially Bones). Outside of character moments, I do think there was a solid mystery that was not entirely unpredictable but worked to keep the tension high. I recommend this book to anyone who was a fan of the first, and I am hoping for more adventures in the future!

_Displeasure Island_ is a humorous contemporary mystery read complete with eccentric characters and an interesting setting. It follows Claire and the characters introduced in _Grave Expectations_ as they vacation on a remote Irish island. Claire expects a fun holiday, but soon learns there are ghost pirates that will not give her peace and posh vacationers that are being murdered. It’s an enjoyable and fast read.

I was so excited to receive the ARC for the 2nd book in this series. This mismatched group of friends - dead and alive - seem to stumble into situations that require them to use Claire’s unusual skills as a medium to help solve murders. In this case the group was headed to a remote island off the coast of Ireland for a chance to rest and relax after the family problems they faced in book #1.

I enjoyed this book as much as the first, Claire and friends are asked to face their own issues and fear about relationships as they are grouped in a with a vacationing group of old college friends, one of whom has made great money and has loaned a lot to friends for business ventures. When someone dies, the group looks at Claire because she is different and Claire starts to investigate to prove she is innocent.

I hadn’t read the first book in this series, but generally authors are good at keeping new readers from feeling lost. I’m glad to say that this is very true in this case. I dived in and was invested almost immediately. I must say right now that I was not very fond of Sophie. She was very irritating and a little mean, and I’m not sure how Claire has kept sane seeing her for so long. This kept me from thinking this was a “fun” book. However, I still enjoyed this book quite a bit because it is well-written, interesting, and I didn’t figure out the murder, and even when I did almost at the end, I was still a little surprised at how everything went down! LOL! I’ll definitely read the next. Recommend. I was provided a complimentary copy which I voluntarily reviewed.

In this second installment in, hopefully and on going, the series we are once more following Claire, Sophie, Basher, and Alex as they try to have a bit of Rest and Relaxation on a remote island that's being promoted for Wellness. Once they get there; however, there's been a bit of a scheduling mix-up and just as that has been smoothed over, someone winds up dead. Throw in a group of best "frenemies", ghost pirates, ghost locals, unresolved trauma, and some wild hijinks and Claire has her mystery solving skills cut out for her.

I really did enjoy this sophomore book in the series. The setting was detailed so well and I have to say the spooky parts were great! Claire having some anxiety and probable PTSD from her recent brush with death was very relatable and I was genuinely scared for her. The feelings of being left out while also pushing people away and being a bit of a jerk, was so real. I did appreciate Basher and Alex trying to navigate that and their own feelings. The only thing I was a bit let down about was the sort of rush for the ending. The ending was great the twist was something I'd worked out but was with Claire the whole time. There didn't feel like there was as much of a wrap up at the end of this novel like the first, so the book didn't feel quite done. That was really my only gripe, and not a big one overall. I so hope there will be a third and more to come.

Pirate ghosts, possible pirate treasure, mysterious deaths, an isolated Irish island and Our Heroes enjoying a highly dubious holiday.

:thumbs up:

This is the second in a series and I mistakenly thought I had read the first one but confused it with another book where the main character has a ghost attached to them. That being said, overall, this reads just fine as a standalone book. There were a couple of things I felt were confusing but not much.

I did not particularly like the main character. I can't even imagine trying to interact with someone that has such an internal monologue that she can't be bothered to answer a simple question. She did get better towards the end of the book but not enough to overcome my initial reaction. The rest of the characters all seemed to blur and you didn't really get a sense of them at all.

a fairly unique plot. Claire is 32 and a bit lost and not doing well at being a grownup. She makes a meagre living as a not-very-good medium. She doesn't wear flicky black eyeliner and lots of scarves and black lace - she's actually a bit of a sad sack. She looks down and says "uhm" a lot. Why a medium, then? Ah, she has a ghostly Constant Companion. She is somehow tethered to her high school chum Sophie, who disappeared at 17 and came back - visible only to Claire - as a ghost. She doesn't remember what happened to her, she just knows she's dead.

In the first book, Claire is the entertainment at a weekend gathering at a posh country home, but instead of being a woo-woo medium, there's a murder or two. She stays friends with two members of the family, and in this sequel they are going on a holiday to an Irish island. Guess what happens?

The premise is novel, the writing is funny, and the characters are a hoot without being Too Much.