Reviewed by Cheryl K

TITLE: Ghost Train

SERIES: Haunted Souls #16

AUTHOR: Pandora Pine

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 184 pages

RELEASE DATE: September 25, 2023

BLURB:

All aboard the ghost train! If you dare…

Needing a well-deserved vacation, psychics Copeland Forbes and Tennyson Grimm accept an offer to take The Lincoln Ghost Train from Boston to Chicago. While on board, the psychics will provide private readings to the passengers and will speak with the spirits who inhabit each of the famously haunted locations the tour will visit. When Cope has an eerie premonition of danger, he chalks it up to being overtired and boards the sleeper car with his family in tow.

Detective Jude Byrne is burned out from working cold cases with his partner Ronan O’Mara. Both men are leery of taking the haunted train, but finally acquiesce when they’re told the second half of the trip will include a week’s stay at a dude ranch out west. Worried his husband will encounter spirits more powerful than his gift can handle, Jude vows to protect his family at all costs.

One day into the trip, Cope encounters Augusta Harbor, a Civil War widow who has spent the last century and half searching for her son, a Union soldier who died on a muddy battlefield mere months before the conflict ended. She appears to be a kind woman dealing with unimaginable heartbreak, but Cope is well aware that looks can be deceiving.

What no one knows is that Augusta will go to any length to reunite with her son, even if that means making Jude and Cope permanent inhabitants of the ghost train.

REVIEW:

Disclaimers – you need to read the previous 15 and the previous series cold case psychics. All the characters from the previous series, play key roles in this newest addition to the Haunted Souls series. Book 16 in the Haunted Souls is like that highly anticipated crossover television event, but in book form.  Boy oh boy does Pandora deliver with this book. What a premise, Cope and Tennyson are invited to ride the rails on a ghost train, that is associated with President Abraham Lincoln.  I was blown away by this one and read it in one sitting.  Who needs sleep, right. Pandora is constantly expanding and redefining the universe this series takes place in. The found family theme is still very prominent in this story and some of the side characters take center stage in an attempt to solve the mystery, that is all encompassing of the Ghost Train.

Jude nodded in agreement. “I couldn’t give two f@*ks about the people on this trip getting what they paid for. You’re not trained circus bears dancing for their amusement. If you need to get out, tell us.”

This being a crossover between the cold case series and the haunted soul’s series, brings out the best of both series.  The sheer volume of ghosts plus the intricacies of the mystery, that only the Scooby gang can solve, has created, to date the best book in both series.  Just a side note, even though this is a crossover – it does not end on a cliff hanger. The ebb and flow of this part of the story comes to its natural conclusion, while setting up the continuation in the next cold case story.

With each new book in this series, Pandora continues to bring a fresh approach to each story and doesn’t become formulaic or repetitive.  She finds unique and interesting ways to move the stories along and keep the excitement alive.

I enthusiastically recommend this book.  Don’t forget to RUN off to your favorite eBook purchasing site and grab up this book – pronto, you won’t be disappointed.  I am on pins and needles trying to patiently wait for the release of the next book in this crossover event and the next books in this series.

RATING:

BUY LINK:

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