“Welcome to Chapelwick, home of the brand new and hilarious Girls Ghostbusting Agency series, where things really do go bump in the night.

When Melody “I-See-Dead-People” Bittersweet wakes up jobless and alone on her twenty-seventh birthday, she realises she can’t leave her life in the hands of her magic eight ball any longer. She starts her very own ghostbusting agency with best friend Marina, geeky, keen Arthur, and, of course, a one-eared pug called Lestat.

But the team’s very first job at the vast, gothic Scarborough House puts them in direct competition with Melody’s ex, the rakish, despicable Leo Dark.

The house is haunted by three eccentric brothers. Douglas was murdered in his prime (and his cricket whites), while melancholy Isaac and shifty Lloyd lived into old age. Was the family right to exile Isaac, or could someone else have had the means, motive and opportunity?

Whoever solves the crime and gets rid of the ghosts gets paid.

Can Melody and her crew untangle the mystery and bring the brothers peace before Leo? Or will his distracting sexiness, Melody’s bonkers family, and her “vintage” (read: shocking knackered) 1973 Ford Transit, cause the agency to fall at its first hurdle?”

Before we get into the nitty gritty of this review I would like to show a little appreciation to Emma Rogers for designing such a stunning cover.  Melody Bittersweet isn’t the type of book I would normally go for (sorry Kitty) and if it wasn’t for that gorgeous eye-catching cover, I don’t think I would have stopped and taken the time to read the blurb.  Once I had done that, I knew that I HAD to read this book and that I was in for something rather special!  (It also helped that I saw the word ‘murder’ in the blurb, so that did it for me really!)

Melody Bittersweet and her slightly eccentric family have a gift, ‘they-see-dead-people’.  It’s all very run of the mill for the Bittersweets, everyone else…struggles a  little with it.  At the grand old age of 27 Melody decides that she needs to ‘do’ something, make her mark on the world and stop messing around.  Starting a business sounds easy, right? Her family have been running Blithe Spirits for eons, but she doesn’t want to do that – they are unbearable enough, without having to work with them as well.  So Melody decides to start her very own business; her family help those still very much alive and left behind so Melody is going to help the ghosts…by becoming a ghostbuster (thankfully no hoovers or green gooey Slimers in sight!).  Can Melody make it as a business woman?  And get one over on her ex-love, Leo Dark, in the process…?

Loved it!  Sorry, let me repeat that, I LOVED THIS BOOK.  What a wonderful change for me to read something lighthearted and a little bit silly.  There are so many good things I want to say, I just don’t know where to start.

Melody is amazing; sassy, spirited (haha, ‘spirited’) and shed loads of fun.  Her family are beyond adorable.  Silvana, her mother, we first meet balancing precariously on a table wearing a teeny tiny negligee, coaxing a ghost from the loft!  Unfortunately, for Melody, we meet her mother at the same time as her date does.  That’s the date she has just brought home for ‘coffee’!  Melody’s grandmother, Dicey, is full of youth, vim and vigour with a great big handful of naughtiness.  Particularly as her husband died in a rather compromising position and his spirit is forever tied to their bedroom!  Oh, and then there’s Marina who is Melody’s best friend.  What an enviable friendship they have! Marina is Melody’s guardian angel (and bodyguard!), the voice of reason (and sometimes aggression) in her ear, plus she brings a delicious treat to the office every day baked by her wonderful Italian Nonna.  But oh my, Artie, the hired help and the only boy working for the agency.  He’s adorable and I loved to see him grow in confidence as the story progressed.  He went from being the shy new boy to (almost) superhero status by the end of the book.

The story moved at a great pace with lots of madcap shenanigans along the way.  I loved the relationship between Melody and Fletcher Gunn and I hope the author builds on this in book two.  The main story line involving the mystery (see, there’s a mystery!) of why the Scarsborough brothers couldn’t move on was interesting.  I enjoyed reading about Melody’s ace detective skills and think she could give a lot of my normal literary detectives a good run for their money.  The race against ex-boyfriend and daytime TV superstar, Leo Dark, to solve the mystery was quite enchanting.

Would I recommend this book?  Without doubt.  This is one of my favourites so far this year and I can see it riding high in my top reads of 2016 list.  It’s an incredibly funny book which is full of adorable characters who are packed to the gills with eccentricity and love for one another.  I have learnt by reading this book that it’s OK, every so often, to step outside of your (reading) comfort zone…you might just enjoy it!  Roll on book two…

Five out of five stars.

Many thanks to Bookouture, Kitty French and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of Melody Bittersweet and the Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency in exchange for an honest review.

Melody Bittersweet and the Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency by Kitty French was published in the UK by Bookouture on 14th July 2016 and is available in paperback and eBook formats | amazon.co.uk | amazon.com | Waterstones | Goodreads | Bookouture |

Kitty French lives in the Black Country with her husband, two young sons and two crazy cats. She’s a lover of all things romantic – songs, music, and most of all, books. Her USA Today best-selling Lucien Knight series topped the erotic chart on both sides of the pond, and she also writes romantic comedy as Kat French for Avon, HarperCollins. She’s over the moon to join Bookouture with her brand new paranormal romantic comedy series, Melody Bittersweet and the Girls Ghostbusting Agency.  Connect with Kitty on Twitter @KFrenchBooks or her website www.kittyfrench.com.