Book Review: The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove (Kestrel & Kee Paranormal Investigations #2) by V.L. Locey

Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE: The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove

SERIES:  Kestrel & Kee Paranormal Investigations

AUTHOR:  V.L. Locey

PUBLISHER:  self-published

LENGTH:  214 pages

RELEASE DATE:  October 17, 2025

BLURB:

As a new year rings in Archie and Phil are about to wrestle with an entity hellbent on riding the dark waves of their worst nightmares.

Archimedes Kee is so in love that he can’t seem to think straight. Not only is his boyfriend, Phil Kestrel, the most amazing man in Liverswell, Massachusetts, but he’s also the other half of their newly formed paranormal investigative duo. While Archie possesses the gift to speak with the dead, Phil is at his side livestreaming their encounters with those who have yet to move over to the light. Since their rather harrowing night at Lake Killikee in the fall they’ve been taking small cases for local folks. Easy jobs such as simple seances or trips to the local cemetery to ask where someone hid important papers.

Nothing too taxing for the couple or their backup techs. But views are dropping while foot traffic to the Kee’s dusty bookstore are falling off. They need new content. And it needs to be as big as the Halloween show.

Pushing aside his reservations Archie agrees to travel out to an abandoned asylum in the next county for a New Year’s Eve glow party that should give their viewers the scary—and cute romantic boy love—content that they crave. With their camera and a bottle of bubbly to celebrate a sleepover in a creepy hospital that has fallen into ruin in hand, Archie and Phil are about to run into a terrifying force that only wants one thing: to feast on their darkest night terrors.

Kestrel and Kee—The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove is an opposites attract, established couple, queer new adult paranormal romance with a devoted pair of sweethearts, a cheeky residentiary ghost, lots of family love, two poltergeists with secrets to share, a cursed sanatorium, and a well-deserved happy ending.

REVIEW:

I absolutely loved this book.  The first story in this series was a huge surprise and a rousing success from my POV.  This second book carries on that tradition.  Archie and Phil have gotten into a rhythm together and they are happy.  Grandpa Kee and his girlfriend Monique provide the found family and support that these guys need.  Tray and Roxie, their partners in the Paranormal Investigations channel are there too.  And it’s coming up to New Years Eve and they need more subscribers and livestreams if they want to make enough to keep the bookstore afloat.  Roxie gets the idea to visit a haunted asylum on New Year’s Eve and livestream the event.

Given what transpired in 19th century asylums, this strikes Archie and everyone else as a bit tricky, but he’s determined to go through with it and make some money.  He and Phil agree on a game plan so that they won’t have a repeat of the near miss with the lady in Lake Killikee.  Too bad that plan goes to hell pretty quickly.  Their idea to live stream some stuff and then pretend to stay the night goes wildly off course when the resident bad spirit and the attack leave them in a very bad spot.  In fact they are lucky to survive it and get away.  The transmission cut out and nobody can contact them by phone or anything.

When they arrive back at Archie’s place, Phil is a wreck.  And it turns out that he’s had some secrets that Archie had no idea about.  In fact, Phil is desperately in need of Archie and his family’s support.  His own family is nothing like Archie has assumed and he’s trying to make sure he keeps his football scholarship at the school so that he can finish.

Given the debacle of the New Year’s Eve stream, they have to do something to salvage things, so they decide to return the next night.  But this time they have more and better equipment, more research into just what that thing that attacked them was and hot they are going to deal with hit.  Luckily Monique has a few trick up her sleeve as well.  With this next level of support, they are in as good a position as they can be to get rid of this nasty spirit!

Oh man!  This was so good!  Scary in just the right ways. I loved the sassy ghosts that hang out at the bookstore – especially Reggie.  And the ghost cat. I love learning more about Monique and her knowledge.  Grandpa comes through supporting both of our heroes.  And of course Archie and Phil are just a joy to see.  Phil’s golden retriever energy is the best and Archie is beginning to recognize his gifts and his worth.  I really really hope there are more books in this series.  I love it!

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Amazon